


Destroying The Planet To Save It

by LoveMeSomeRafael



Category: Captain America, Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A new villain is threatening Earth, After Civil War but before Infinity War, Angst, Because have we met?, Bruce Banner is still in love with a fellow scientist but he can't because Hulk, Bruce didn't go to Sakaar because that's just stupid, Bruce is also not the perma-Hulk because come the fuck on, Bucky Barnes meets a Secret Service agent who likes guns and knives as much as he does, But he REALLY wants to and so does she, Canon? What Canon?, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff have always had a thing, Clint doesn't have a family because I said so, F/M, Fluff, Graphic violence probably, Lots of Avengers getting laid, M/M, No matter what Natasha says, OK now I'm just being stupid, Pining, Piny Angst, Sharon Carter knows what he needs, Smut, So.Much.Swearing, Swearing, What passes for humor in my writing, angsty pining, steve rogers needs to chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 08:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 32
Words: 172,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22966648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveMeSomeRafael/pseuds/LoveMeSomeRafael
Summary: There’s a new threat to the world, and The Avengers join the new S.H.I.E.L.D. to find and fight it, starting with a gala event where they're providing security for the President (no, not that one).Lots going on.Steve Rogers has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it's wearing him down.  Sharon Carter tells him he can't just give all the time, he needs to let those who love him take care of him.  Starting with her.Bucky Barnes meets a Secret Service agent who likes guns and knives as much as he does.  They get close after a Quinjet crash, but as interested as she is (and she IS), she's not going to risk her heart.Sam Wilson thought S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Anita Herrera didn't notice him.  Oh, she noticed him all right.Bruce Banner met a fellow scientist in Munich, and they fell in love.  He had to let her go when she learned about The Other Guy, but now he needs her help to figure out what's causing all these destructive phenomena.  But he's never come close to getting over her.Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff met when he was sent to kill her.  Instead, they spent three days in bed in Talinn and neither of their lives have been the same since.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Original Female Character(s), Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff, James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), Sam Wilson/Original Female Character(s), Steve Rogers/Sharon Carter
Comments: 129
Kudos: 60





	1. Impure Thoughts

“Seriously? This is what we’re doing now?” Sam Wilson growled. “We’ve saved the world how many times? And tonight they got us workin’ as what, bouncers? Security guards?”

Bucky Barnes looked around the massive hotel ballroom with a shrug. “Well, it _is_ the President.”

“He got his own damned guards! Why are they not handlin’ their shit? Ain’t that what the taxpayers are paying them for?” Sam was hissing in Bucky’s ear, and in the ears of the rest of the Avengers team scattered throughout the huge, crowded room wearing comm devices that looked like those used by the Secret Service, but were fortunately not patched into their frequency. 

Steve Rogers knew some of those Secret Service guys, and they were not only tough as hell but damn proud of what they did. Sam would be wise not to piss them off.

“That’s enough, Falcon,” he muttered from where he stood in a narrow hallway outside the ballroom, watching the President roll his eyes as his staff tried to prepare him for a speech he could give in his sleep. He’d already seen the guy stare down a woman who tried to get him to let her powder his nose. Steve thought he might kinda like this President. Not like the last douchebag.

In the ballroom, standing in front of the dais looking out at the crowd and trying not to attract attention, Bucky smirked at Sam. “I don’t know. It’s not so bad. It’s probably just terrorists. Won’t that be a nice break from, like, mad scientists and aliens and shit? Besides, c’mon. You know you’re havin’ impure thoughts about me in this tux.” 

Sam gave him a quick sneer. “Dude, you need a new mirror.”

“Barnes,” Clint Barton’s voice came over the comms. “President Lattimore is fifteen seconds out from the East entrance.”

“Copy,” Bucky murmured. Now it was Sam’s turn to smirk. 

“Fuck you,” Bucky growled at Sam as he began to walk – if big, sleek cats looking for trouble can be said to just “walk” - across to the large expanse of doors on the East side of the ballroom. All were locked except for the center doors, allowing the security teams to control access to the room and monitor the entrances of dignitaries. Bucky had drawn the short straw and been assigned to the former President from Alabama, a guy so grandiose with a manner so smarmy yet chill-inducing that Bucky could only hope he didn’t slip and call him Palpatine to his face. 

There was a Secret Service agent in front of each of the eight doors on this side of the room. Bucky knew that there were also agents on the other side of each door. The center door was the only one with more than one guard, and Bucky knew that Natasha Romanoff was on the other side. She’d been assigned the very delicate task of making sure each and every person who went through that door – security guard, celebrity, Senator, foreign dignitary, or former American President – got searched, and searched well. Although Natasha didn’t agree, Bucky was pretty sure _she’d_ drawn the _really_ short straw.

At the door through which former President Lattimore would be entering, Bucky knew he’d be met by his counterpart, the Secret Service agent assigned to shadow former President Lattimore while he was in the ballroom. He looked at the series of tuxedoed men with serious expressions and fairly obvious earpieces standing stiffly at the door, wondering which one that would turn out to be. 

As he took his place to one side of the door, he exchanged nods with the senior agent who’d been working with the Avengers to plan security for this event. The senior agent then turned his glance to a woman Bucky hadn’t even noticed, and the two greeted each other quietly. A ghost of a smile played across her lips as she took her place across from Bucky.

He tried his damnedest to have no expression on his face. _This_ was his Secret Service counterpart? She looked tiny to him. She wasn’t – she was at least five-foot-six and was in no way a waif – but he’d been expecting someone… bigger. In his heart of hearts, he knew he’d been expecting a burly man, but he tried not to acknowledge that thought to himself, lest it show on his face. The last thing he wanted was another lecture from Natasha about his dinosaur tendencies. 

“Joss Emerson,” she said in a voice that was surprisingly low and smooth.

“Bucky Barnes.”

She almost laughed. “Yeah. I know.” 

OK, so there were actually lunchboxes with his face on them, but no matter how insanely well-known the Avengers had become, Bucky could never imagine just assuming that people knew who he was. He didn’t have time to feel awkward, though, because at that moment, a spotlight shone on the door and someone on the dais announced into the microphone that former President Lattimore was arriving. The door opened and the man ponced into the room to the recorded strains of some campaign song or another, Bucky didn’t know, all modern music sounded the same to him. Lattimore flashed his unnaturally white, uncle-who-hugs-too-long simper, waving as enthusiastically as if the scattered applause was a standing ovation. Bucky thought he seemed a little disappointed in its volume, and he was undeniably unhappy when the spotlight turned off seconds after he entered. 

Fortunately for his ego, Lattimore was immediately greeted by a number of people who seemed thrilled to be seen with him. Already Bucky was fighting the urge to place himself between his objective and the group of fawning, salivating morons draping themselves over him as one of the many photographers wandering the ballroom captured the moment. He glanced over at Agent Emerson, who didn’t seem even a little bothered. She clearly knew who these people were. Her eyes were everywhere else. Bucky sighed. It was gonna be a long night.

*****

None of the Avengers wanted to be here. Only a few even believed there was a credible threat. The problem was, those who did believe there was a credible threat – Steve, Bruce Banner, and Tony Stark – outweighed the rest of the team. They’d been among the ones called to Washington, D.C. to a very secret meeting with the President and several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Phil Coulson, Director of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. had been there, as well, and they’d all been convinced by what they’d seen.

Something was going on. Strange energy signatures had been detected in various places around the Earth, and in each of those places, cataclysmic events had occurred. The events _seemed_ to be natural phenomena – earthquakes, hurricanes, massive wildfires – but it was far too much of a coincidence. 

And then there was this guy Arias. Jarman Arias, mouthy Columbian dickweed with enough money to make even Tony Stark raise an eyebrow. Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. had found what could be interpreted as his fingerprints on several of the incidents. Faint and plausibly deniable, but there. 

After that meeting, when S.H.I.E.L.D. had agreed to investigate the incidents and Steve had agreed that the Avengers would take this assignment, the Avengers team had been working with the Secret Service to prepare for this night. It was a great opportunity for S.H.I.E.L.D. to observe Arias, but that wasn’t the Avengers’ mission. Their mission was to make sure that having Arias in the same room with the President, the former President, and a whole lot of other powerful notables didn’t turn out to be a Very. Bad. Idea. 

*****

Sam was assigned to Arias, who arrived a few minutes after President Lattimore. He, too, had a counterpart, but she wasn’t Secret Service, she was S.H.I.E.L.D. He’d met her before, and admired her sleek, Latina looks, but something about the way she seemed to look right through him had made him hesitant to make a move. Tonight seemed like a good opportunity, and he liked what he was seeing so far.

Arias had his own security team, known to be very lethal and not overly concerned about legality or collateral damage. He didn’t want or need more security, and he definitely objected to having people he didn’t know close to him. But Anita Herrera was good. 

“Señor Arias, no one’s questioning your security team,” she assured him in musical Spanish. She actually didn’t have a Colombian accent – she was Cuban – but anyone listening to her right now would swear she was born and raised in Bogotá. “But the President has asked that we take special care of you. This event is important to him, so important that he’s actually asked The Avengers to provide security for his most important guests, although we’re keeping that quiet. You won’t mind being seen to be guarded by the Falcon himself, will you?”

Sam wanted to punch the guy in the throat merely for getting to be the target of Herrera’s smile. _Damn_. She was something. 

And Arias, like many a man before him, made his ego-driven decision with the other head. “Of course, Agent Herrera. When you put it that way.”

Sam tried his best to give Agent Herrera a very professional, not at all aroused, nod of the head. It mostly worked. But when she gave him a taste of that smile, Sam suddenly got very interested in the logistics of getting Arias into the ballroom and where he would be seated, because there was only so much room in the slacks of his expertly-tailored tuxedo.

*****

At that moment, Bucky was listening to former President Lattimore (whom he knew for a fact had been called Voldemort by his Secret Service detail behind his back) making inappropriate comments to Agent Emerson.

“It’s so nice to see you again, Joss, and you’re looking just as lovely as ever. I’ll never know where you hide firearms under those dresses.” Bucky flicked a glance at Lattimore just in time to see the lecherous gleam in his eye as he gave Emerson a very thorough once-over.

Her voice was professional as she responded, “Not your problem, Sir. As long as _I_ know where they are.”

In fact, Bucky _did_ know where Emerson hid at least one firearm under her dress, and he’d counted three knives so far. Five, if you counted the heels on her shoes, which he’d bet his new SOG tac knife were not standard issue. Bucky knew fuck-all about women’s dresses, but he knew what he liked. Her black dress had long sleeves (two knives) and fitted the upper part of her body very nicely (third knife between her breasts, but it wasn’t like he’d been _looking_ ). Bucky really appreciated the way the soft material clung to her, even as he appreciated that it was stretchy enough to let her move however she needed to. The skirt had a slit up to _there_ , which would allow her to run even though the dress was long enough to touch the floor. It didn’t flash the entire length of her right leg quite often enough for his taste, but did give him a pretty good idea where he’d find her gun. And the dress had cutouts on either side of her waist, which gave him a tantalizing view of a body built for more than looks. The cutouts also gave him a clue where he might find a few more weapons. You know, if he went looking. 

“I don’t know how a girl like you decides to be a Secret Service agent, but I suppose I shouldn’t question my good fortune.” Lattimore leaned toward Emerson, who was only looking at him every few seconds, scanning the room the rest of the time. His voice got even oilier as he murmured, “You know, my offer still stands. I still have a little pull around here.” His self-deprecating laugh didn’t fool Bucky for a second. 

“Thank you, Sir. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

“The First Lady isn’t the jealous type, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, Sir. Mrs. Lattimore is a lovely woman.”

“So are you, Joss. I’d love to have you on my personal detail.”

Was that a little bit of _drool_ Bucky caught on the edge of Lattimore’s lips? _What a tool_. Bucky may have been born in 1917, but even he knew that modern women didn’t have to put up with this shit. He wondered why Emerson did. Especially when, the more Bucky studied her without meaning to, it was obvious she was a pro at what she did. Her wary, tensed body language didn’t change – she was coiled and ready for trouble, if it came – even as this ancient, slimy dillrod talked to her like she was just another sycophant and not a highly-trained professional there to protect his randy old goat ass.

An overdressed couple approached the former President then and engaged him in a round of overheated reciprocal compliments. Bucky stopped listening to the mutual masturbation and took a sideways step toward Agent Emerson, all the while keeping his eyes and his full awareness on everything happening in the room. 

“Why do I feel like I should apologize for that asshole?” He muttered out the side of his mouth, his voice pitched so only she could hear. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she muttered back.

“He always like that?”

“Pretty much. He made that gun comment every day for four years.”

“Huh. Not very observant, then.”

“Not his job.” Then, from the corner of his eye, Bucky saw her give a little delayed shake. “Wait. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin’.”

“Uh-huh. You realize if you tell me _you_ know where my guns are, that’s just the other side of the same coin.”

Bucky hadn’t realized that, but he did now. Bucky Barnes hadn’t blushed since 1943, and he didn’t at that moment, but he was embarrassed. Which meant he immediately started to talk too much. “No. My admiration is purely professional. I – Wait, _guns_? As in, more than one?”

She didn’t answer, just smirked. For a while, they stood behind and to either side of the former President, just observing. 

He tried. He really did. But Bucky couldn’t help himself. “How many?”

He caught the little twist of her lips at that. “Kind of a personal question, isn’t it?”

“I’ll tell if you do.”

“You don’t have to tell me how many guns you’re packing, Barnes. Five. And at least four knives, although it’s probably more.”

“You’re right. Five guns. Seven knives. Your turn.”

She huffed a tiny sigh, but he could tell it was for show. “On me? Two guns. A few others around the room.”

Bucky couldn’t hide his smile. He liked girls. He really liked guns. And he really, _really_ liked girls with guns.

“And knives?”

“Five on me. Lots more stashed.”

Through Bucky’s earpiece, he heard Clint Barton’s voice again. “OK, if Barnes can keep it in his pants long enough, the President’s arriving in five. They’re gonna seat everyone.”

Bucky had actually forgotten that every word he said was being broadcast to the rest of his team. _Oops_. Still, it was nowhere close to the first time one of them had said something on the comms that the rest of the team didn’t need to hear. It wasn’t even uncommon for one of them to be overheard flirting. And Sam once got… well, Bucky needed to focus.

He saw in the slight flinch Agent Emerson gave that she was getting the same message in her earpiece. She stepped up to President Lattimore and quietly interrupted his gladhanding to let him know it was time to be seated. 

As they followed him to his table, Bucky and Agent Emerson found themselves walking next to one another. 

“I thought I was gonna hate this assignment,” Bucky whispered to her. “But I’m kinda digging the whole James Bond thing.”

“Yeah, you’re _so_ not James Bond.”

“I’m literally wearing a tuxedo!”

“Call me when you’re British,” she mumbled and stepped to the other side of Lattimore as he seated himself at his prominently-situated table. When he was settled, with Emerson seated next to him on his right, Bucky stood behind them until everyone else was seated, then stalked to stand at the side of the room, relieved that the uncontrolled, social part of the event was over. 

*****

Now it was Steve’s turn. He and Tony Stark were both simply too well-known to even try to blend in with the Secret Service. So, in his role as one of the President’s honored guests, he was wearing a suit that cost as much as the apartment building he’d grown up in, feeling much more naked than he did in his extremely form-fitting Captain America suit. He knew exactly where his shield was, but it wasn’t on his back or his arm, and without it he felt woefully unarmed even though he was, in fact, carrying several weapons. He fidgeted through the last half-minute before he and the rest of the President’s entourage would make their way to the East doors of the ballroom where the President would make his entrance. 

Tony was already seated at the President’s table with Pepper. Sharon Carter, as Steve’s date, was on his other side. Tony was in his element. In fact, he’d already made a billion-dollar handshake deal with one of the Joint Chiefs before he’d finished his first drink. But his cool was deceptive. He used his always-manic energy to camouflage a wired vigilance that missed nothing. Sharon, too, was all eyes and ears and taut alertness.

The lights dimmed. “Ruffles and Flourishes” started to pour out from the sound system and Tony knew that Clint was, at that moment, climbing through the ceiling to his well-stocked sniper’s nest over the dais, hidden by what looked like any other set of stage curtains but were, in fact, made of a fabric as bulletproof as fabric could be and manufactured by Stark Industries. 

The spotlight shone on the door, which opened just as the sound system began to play “Hail To The Chief.” Not one of the Avengers was looking at the President as he entered with the First Lady, waving and smiling to the clapping crowd. They were watching _everyone else_ look at the President.

“Fuck’s sake, Steve,” Sam’s voice came over the comms. “Smile. You’re supposed to be having a good time. You look like your underwear’s too tight.”

The quiet chuckles of the rest of the team filtered through their earpieces, while Steve’s expression became even more sour and his face flushed a bright shade of crimson that wasn’t entirely washed out by the spotlight that followed the President to his table.

Once he sat down next to Sharon, Steve couldn’t help but feel beneath the tablecloth to make sure his shield was right where it was supposed to be, secured to the underside of the table in a quick-release frame. 

“You all right?” Sharon asked quietly.

“I hate this,” Steve hissed through a fake smile that looked more like he was trying to hold in a fart. 

Once the President was seated, a comedian walked out onto the dais and began a monologue filled with references to current culture that, apparently, everyone but Steve and Bucky found hilarious. They could all hear muffled laughs through the comms. Tony’s laughter was the most prevalent, because he was basically watching two shows. He found Steve’s obvious unfamiliarity with them funnier than the references themselves. 

“Eyes on the ball, Ironman,” Steve grunted at one point, not enjoying this moment any more than he was enjoying the rest of the night. Tony just laughed louder.

*****

The President never got to make his speech. Bruce Banner, monitoring a Times Square worth of screens and flashing readouts in a much smaller conference room on the same floor as the ballroom, saw the spike immediately. It was the same strange energy signature that they’d been seeing around the world, which had preceded a “natural” disaster each time.

“Alert, alert, alert,” Bruce’s strangely emotionless voice came through their comms. “I got a spike. Repeat, I’m seeing a spike. Get ‘em out.”

The comedian actually made one more joke before he noticed the quiet but fiercely determined way the cadre of athletic individuals dressed in black who had been lining the walls began to make their way to those they were assigned to protect.

Steve pulled his shield from its holder and held the President between it and himself as he, Tony, and a fleet of Secret Service agents carried him out on a wave of dark clothing and suddenly visible firepower.

Bucky had President Lattimore out of his chair before Agent Emerson had even finished freeing her MP5 from the underside of the table. Sandwiched between Emerson in front and Bucky in back, and surrounded by members of his usual Secret Service detail, Lattimore squawked and whined the whole way to the East Entrance. 

Sam wasn’t as surprised as he might have been to find that Arias refused to leave the ballroom. 

“I am not a politician, and I am not a coward. I’ll stay right here and finish this excellent brandy,” Arias purred. 

“Sir, for your own safety, I really must insist-“

“Sit down, Mr. Wilson. Whatever’s going on, I can assure you we are not its targets.”

“Yeah, well, if it’s a bomb, that’s gonna be surprisingly non-comforting,” Sam growled. “I mean it. Get up now. I’m not asking.”

Jarman Arias was not used to being spoken to in any tone that wasn’t at least impressed, and usually closer to awe tinged with fear. He was definitely not used to Sam’s Master Sergeant Wilson voice. Like everyone else, his first instinct was to obey. 

The Secret Service may have been exchanging confused and chaotic chatter, but there was no chatter at all on the Avengers’ comms. They all knew where they needed to go.

Steve wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of the team of decoys who met them in the hotel’s kitchens and made a noisy show of hustling some random dude out of the hotel and into the President’s limousine. But he let it go as he led the real President down a cluttered hallway with a tiled floor to a stairway that led to a delivery entrance. Natasha and Clint met them at the bottom of the stairs wearing beige coveralls bearing the logo of a large commercial food distributor on the back. They silently handed coveralls to the President and each of the team, and the entire group quickly zipped them on. When they were done, half of them – including the President - also slipped baseball hats on and they sauntered out the door across a ten-foot expanse of concrete into the back of a large panel truck. 

Inside the truck, they met Bucky and his team with the former President, who was red-faced but had stopped complaining as Agent Emerson sweet-talked him. Steve could tell with a glance that Bucky hated the guy even more now than he had when he’d learned that’s who he was assigned to protect. He grinned at Bucky and got an annoyed eyeroll in response. 

Clint pulled the rolling door closed on the panel truck and dim red lighting illuminated the cargo area as they all grabbed on to handholds along the walls. 

“AK is secure,” Steve said as the truck began to move. “Leaving the hotel now.”

“Roger, Cap. See you in a few.” Phil Coulson sounded as though he was sitting in a lounge chair with a Mai Tai rather than directing a major op from a couple hundred miles away. 

*****

Jarman Arias recovered fairly quickly from the Master Sergeant Wilson treatment, and was fairly put out by being rushed to his limo. Sam didn’t give a fuck. He was moving, and that was all that mattered. 

Unlike the rest of the team, Sam and Agent Herrera didn’t know where they were going. Part of their mission was to see how Arias would react if, in fact, the mysterious energy was detected around this event. If it turned out that Arias was linked to the energy and the events that seemed to follow, his reactions could be very telling. Still, Sam had a role to play. If he was just another bodyguard – a vastly overqualified bodyguard who was way too fucking pretty to be someone’s flunky, he thought to himself – he would have tried to get his principal out of the area of danger. So that’s what he had to do. 

But Arias wasn’t happy about it. In fact, if Sam had to guess, he’d say that what he was seeing was fear. But it wasn’t from whatever the threat at the massive hotel had been. Arias had been perfectly happy to chill in the ballroom while the rest of the crowd screamed and yelled, tipping over chairs and smashing glassware in their hurry to get out once the dignitaries started being evacuated.

“Just where do you suggest we go?” Arias growled in his accented English as his limo squealed away from the curb.

“I don’t care, man, just away from here.”

“Why? What is the threat?”

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted, having difficulty trying to straighten his tux, squeezed as he was between two of Arias’s goons in the backward-facing seat across from Arias, Herrera and two more goons. “I get the signal to fuck off, I fuck off. And since I’m responsible for your safety, you fuck off with me.”

“Fine.” Arias picked up a phone receiver that was set in the rear window console behind him. “Alejandro, Site B, please. Quickly,” he said in Spanish, then hung up the phone.

Agent Herrera blinked. In English for Sam’s benefit, she asked, “What’s Site B?”

Suddenly, Sam’s face went slack and he uttered a soft, drawn out, “Fuck me.”

Agent Herrera must have been getting the same message in her earpiece from the Secret Service that Sam had just received from Natasha.

“How is that even possible?” Sam shrieked.

“Don’t ask me,” Natasha’s voice came to his ear. “I’m just telling you what Clint’s telling me he sees. The biggest motherfucking tornado he’s ever heard of. And Clint’s from Iowa.”


	2. Another Damn Emergency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part of the team takes the President(s) to New York, while the other part stays in D.C. trying to figure out what the hell happened. Sam and his partner for this assignment make a big discovery (well, she does, while he distracts the bad guys with a bunch of bullshit). Bucky and his partner play show and tell with weapons. Steve and Sharon have a moment. Do _not_ insult Tony's limo bus.

“A _what now_?” Bucky cried.

Everyone in the back of the panel truck, including three Avengers, four S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, seven Secret Service agents, two Presidents of the United States and a First Lady, started shouting. Tornadoes were rare enough in Washington D.C., and if Clint Barton’s eyes were to be believed, this one was a monster. As a result, Steve found himself amid a large group of people simultaneously and collectively losing their shit in an enclosed space. The cacophony went on for several minutes before the assault on his supersoldier hearing finally overcame his innate politeness and respect for authority. Bigtime.

“ _SHUT UP_!” 

Steve’s enhanced strength and lung capacity ensured that the ears of everyone else in the truck now hurt as much as his did. It didn’t even occur to him to be sorry. In the stunned silence that followed, each person heard whatever Natasha whispered in Russian over the comms. 

“What is it, Natasha?” Steve asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

“Uh, I see it, Rogers. The tornado. It’s… Huh. Not sure I want to be here right now.”

Former President Lattimore whimpered. 

Current President Everett Burke scoffed at him, his voice quiet but clearly heard by all. “Oh, for the love of… Pull yourself together, Adam. At least pretend you got a sack on you.”

Lattimore, an ostentatiously church-going Christian, gasped. Everyone else in the truck tried to look somewhere else.

“Natasha,” Steve said. “The tornado, is it between us and the jet?”

“No, and it’s not heading that way. No reason to deviate from the plan.”

“Then don’t.”

“Listen,” President Burke said to Steve, “There’s going to be a lot of damage. I need to get somewhere where I can do my job.”

“Sir, right now the best thing you can do is make sure you remain _able_ to do your job. And that means letting me get you to safety.” Bucky hid a smile at the heavy dose of Captain America Steve pumped into his voice. “You can do anything you need to from where we’re going.”

“Which is where?”

“I’ll tell you once we’re in the air.”

Tony spoke up. “Sir, I can assure you, you’ll have everything you need.”

“I am the President of the United States! I can’t just haul ass when the Capital’s in trouble!”

“With all due respect, Sir, that’s exactly what the President should do in this situation.” This was Craig Thomas, the senior Secret Service agent in charge of security at the event they’d just fled. “I have to agree with Captain Rogers. Only difference between what we’re doing now and what we’d be doing otherwise is, the decoys will be on Air Force One.”

“And us? Where will we be?”

“I admit yours is bigger, Sir,” Tony smirked, “But I _do_ know how to kit out a plane.”

President Burke grinned, giving in to the wisdom of the plan. “I’ll just bet you do, Stark. What kind of scotch you got on board?”

“You won’t be disappointed. I promise.”

*****

Sam looked around at what he could only describe as a bunker. The limousine they’d arrived in had pulled into what appeared to be an industrial park, but as soon as they passed the roll-up door from the outside, all resemblance to a normal building ended. The driver crossed the garage-like first room to enter a steeply-angled tunnel that took them what Sam estimated was at least two stories underground. He wondered how far away from the actual entrance the tunnel took them. It was impossible to know, but he guessed they had to have driven at least two blocks from the building they’d entered. 

“The fuck?” He whispered to himself. 

There were a number of vehicles in the cavernous space that opened up at the end of the tunnel. Sam saw another limo, two mid-range sports cars, at least five utility trucks of various types, and probably a dozen ordinary sedans. 

“What, exactly, is this place?” Sam asked.

Jarman Arias swished a hand dismissively through the air. “Washington is a dangerous city. I like to have a place of safety. Just in case.”

Sam and Agent Herrera were all eyes as they were guided from the limousine to a door nearby, and Sam had time to wonder how wise it was to follow when he saw that the door was made of metal and wouldn’t have been out of place on a bank vault except for its industrial ugliness. The door was set into the thick concrete of the walls. Sam noticed other doors and a few concrete hallways leading off of the massive garage space. He had no idea what to think, and Herrera didn’t appear any less confounded. He swallowed his misgivings and stepped through the door into what, surprisingly, appeared to be a fairly ordinary conference room. Luxurious, but not quite so evil-villian’s-lair as the space they’d just left.

Once the group had shuffled in and Arias had taken a place at the large, mahogany table that dominated the room, he offered Sam a cigar. Sam wanted to refuse. He meant to. Had he chosen to, he could have rattled off half a dozen reasons why he should, without even having to engage his brain. But Sam knew a little about cigars, and when he saw what was in the small humidor Arias was holding, he found himself absolutely incapable of declining. Fuck it. The dude was either a crazed megalomaniac who could manufacture a tornado, or he wasn’t. Whether Sam accepted a once-in-a-lifetime cigar wasn’t going to change that. He saw Anita Herrera’s raised eyebrow and shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll give you one, if you want.”

She smiled at him again, and Sam thought he might be a little in love already.

The room had five doors, including the one through which they’d entered. A couple were open, and another was ajar. Again, they were all metal, and all fitted into the concrete walls in a way that let Sam know how thick those walls were. He was interested in the fact that this place was underground, just where you were supposed to go in a tornado. Had Arias known there would be one? From what Barton had said, the tornado was massive. Sam wondered how well the huge hotel they’d left would have withstood something like that. He scowled, deep in thought, as one of Arias’s lackeys lit Sam’s cigar for him. _Shit_ , he thought as he inhaled a mouthful of delicious smoke. Arias may have been a complete choad, but damn, that was a nice stogie. He looked around and indicated the room with a sweep of his arm.

“So you’re seriously tellin’ me this fucking doomsday silo is just you tryna keep from gettin’ mugged? I don’t think so.”

“Mr. Wilson, I don’t believe I have to answer to you,” Arias said smoothly, putting his cigar back in his mouth.

“I ain’t say you do. I’m just… interested.”

Arias smirked around his cigar, but said nothing. 

“You got cable or somethin’ down here?” Sam asked, seeing he wasn’t to get anywhere with straight-up questions. “I’d like to see what’s going on outside.”

The worst of the destruction was north of the city, around Bethesda and Chevy Chase, although as tornadoes do, this one had skipped across the landscape, done some heavy damage in Rock Creek Park and even touched down as far south as Adams Morgan. So far, there were only three deaths reported, but it was early. The tornado itself had been accompanied by serious winds which had damaged a lot of buildings, including the National Cathedral and a number of historical sites.

*****

Stark’s Gulfstream G450 was at capacity, even though Pepper Potts and three of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had stayed behind in Washington to deal with the threat. They’d put out the word that there had been a bomb scare, because that was the most plausible and the least surprising story. Tell people what they expect to hear, and they won’t ask questions. But Steve, Tony, and Bucky knew that nobody had any idea what had happened in D.C. Not really. Bruce Banner was still hard at work trying to make sense of the data. He would meet them in New York with Clint and Natasha as soon as they could get there. 

In the meantime, President Burke was already talking on several phone lines at once, even as he sipped Tony Stark’s fine scotch. He was aboard with only eight Secret Service agents and the First Lady, which meant a fucking _horde_ of functionaries were pissing their pants right now. The President _simply did not_ get to leave Washington without months of planning and a 747 full of people with him.

“It’s the damn twenty-first century, Clive,” the President was saying. “You don’t need to see my face for us to get work done. But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll text you a fucking selfie when we get off the phone here. Spine up, would you?”

Tony, sitting across from him at the small galley table, smiled and nodded, amused.

At the front of the cabin, Former President Lattimore and Agent Emerson sat in seats facing one another, with two of Lattimore’s usual Secret Service detail in seats across a little aisle from them. A healthy slug of very expensive gin had helped Lattimore calm himself, although the real reason he wasn’t as put out as he had been initially was the realization that he had been whisked away with the current President. Although Joss Emerson seriously doubted that was anything more than circumstance, she’d been the one to point that out, and encourage Lattimore to think that was due to his own continued importance, because it kept him pacified. She’d learned very well how to keep President Lattimore happy over the four long years of his administration. She’d voted for Burke more to make her work life better than for any political reason, and she had to stifle a groan at finding herself here, again, babysitting Lattimore. Thank God Mrs. Lattimore was basically a cipher. Her husband was enough work.

Joss’s mind was whirling. Of course, she’d known that S.H.I.E.L.D. was worried about something, and that whatever it was, it was serious enough, and strange enough, to warrant the unheard-of move to actually use the Avengers for security at tonight’s event. She had been well-briefed on the bizarre plan to evacuate if that threat emerged, and clearly instructed not to ask questions. Joss had been Air Force; she knew how to keep her head down and her mouth shut. But they couldn’t keep her from seeing, or thinking.

So Joss knew some things. She knew that this was no bomb threat. You didn’t need the Avengers to deal with something like that. She also knew that, like President Lattimore, she was only here on this plane through coincidence. Joss knew enough about the Avengers to know that, ever since they’d been back from Wakanda, Steve Rogers never went far without Bucky Barnes. If Captain America was tasked with protecting the President, he wasn’t going to do it without his Sergeant. Which meant that, when the threat they feared had emerged, Barnes had instructions to just bundle Lattimore and his entourage up and bring them along so he’d be on hand to help Rogers with the real mission.

She shivered a little. Although she would die rather than let him know it, Joss had always kind of had a thing for Bucky Barnes, ever since Captain America had defied the whole world to rescue his lifelong friend from Hydra. Sure, Steve Rogers was a gorgeous hunk of heroic muscle, the personification of bravery and patriotism and all that crap. She wouldn’t kick him out of bed. But Bucky Barnes? That man was an absolute filthy-hot badass. Joss’s kryptonite. She’d spent more time on YouTube than was perhaps entirely normal, watching video of him making impossible shots and fighting with that stupid-sexy metal arm of his, pulling knives out of God knows where and flipping them around too fast for her to follow with her eyes, let alone try to emulate. Joss found the whole package so ridiculously erotic that she was, at this moment, squirming in her seat. And it wasn’t only because of the damn wildly uncomfortable thong she’d worn because she’d known she was going to meet him tonight and fuck if she was going to do it wearing granny panties. 

She didn’t fool herself that The Avengers would let her help save the world, whatever the threat was this time. But she was here with them in an enclosed space, and this was her one chance to be close to them, so she decided to find out what, if anything, they’d tell her. And maybe, just maybe, get a chance to see if Bucky Barnes really smelled as good as she’d always imagined he would.

Making her way back through the jet, Joss saw him standing with Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter in the little galley at the rear of the jet’s cabin. Both Steve and Bucky had shed their tuxedo jackets and their bow ties hung down their chests from unbuttoned collars. As she approached, she saw Bucky look up and notice her, and felt a dirty roll low in her body, accompanied by a shocking jolt of nerves as he grinned at her. 

  


As soon as Bucky moved a little forward to talk quietly with the Secret Service agent he’d been partnered with, Steve moved a little closer to Sharon. 

“You all right?” He asked quietly.

“Of course,” she smiled. “Plan worked flawlessly. The President’s safe, and we even got a bonus President. What’s not to like?”

Steve frowned a little. “A lot. It’s getting a little hard to imagine that the energy signature we’re seeing, whatever it is, isn’t causing these phenomena.”

“You’re saying you’re afraid somebody’s figured out how to cause natural disasters.”

“I’m trying _not_ to say that. But after this…”

“Well, if it’s true, then Captain America will stop them. Like always.” Sharon smiled up at Steve, and he felt the thrill he always did when she looked at him. He was getting very fond of the seemingly unshakable confidence she always showed in him. At the same time, Steve wished he shared that confidence. Or that the responsibility to stop somebody with the power to cause earthquakes and tornadoes rested on somebody else’s shoulders. That kind of power was terrifying. Steve sometimes wished he could afford to be terrified.

“What’s that look for?” She asked.

“Ask me again when we get to New York. Or maybe when this is over.”

Sharon’s eyes clouded a little. “I will. You can talk to me, you know.”

“I know. Just… not now.”

“OK. Can I kiss you, though? You look like a man who needs a kiss.”

“I am most definitely a man in need of a kiss.” His half-shy smile gave Sharon delicious chills down her spine.

She stepped into Steve’s arms, noticing as always how warm he was with that supersoldier metabolism, and reveling in the feeling of his rock-hard body against hers. Sharon was sometimes overwhelmed by how absolutely, spectacularly beautiful he was. But it was so much more than that.

Sharon knew what the look on Steve’s face had been about. It was about the crushing weight of responsibility Steve carried with him every moment of every day. Steve did everything he could to keep anyone from seeing how exhausting that was. But Sharon could see it. It was why she had come back to S.H.I.E.L.D. Sure, she’d responded to Director Coulson’s request, and understood his need for Agents around him he could trust implicitly. But she hadn’t come back for Director Coulson. She’d come back because she was in love with Steve Rogers, and S.H.I.E.L.D. was where she could be of the most help to him. She’d come back because, with the seemingly unhealable rift between the Avengers, Steve had needed all the friends he could get, and Sharon Carter was damn well going to be there for him.

She made no secret of her attraction to him. Hell, she was kissing him at this very moment. But Steve kept a wall around him that might as well have been made of vibranium. Theirs was the most casual possible dating relationship. Sharon had become Steve’s go-to when he needed a plus one for some event or other, but that was basically it. They had never even been on a real date. They’d certainly never slept together. They had meals together when they were both working in the same place. They talked, sometimes even about actual feelings and experiences and shit. But it was all so superficial. 

She hated it, and not only because it was damn cold in the fucking friend zone. Sharon ached for how lonely and encumbered with his sense of obligation Steve Rogers was, knowing that he thought no one could see. That maybe he would be angry that _she_ could see. She craved the chance to just hold him, run her hands through his hair and tell him it was OK to lay it all down for a while. To kiss him and caress him and make him forget, at least for a little while.

Sure, Steve had Bucky, and they were closer than brothers. But right now, Bucky was just beginning to integrate into the team, and even though his mind was clean again, his wounds weren’t something that were going to heal anytime soon. Steve would never burden Bucky with his own pain at a time like that. No, Steve would be there for him, lending him his own strength and doing whatever he could to help Bucky recover and build a life for himself, without any regard to what Steve needed. 

Sharon wasn’t sure whether he would ever let her in, but she knew that whatever he needed from her, she would give. Steve was an icon of strength and bravery to the world, but to Sharon, he was a bruised, overtaxed man, trapped and tormented in a prison of his own making, feeling responsible for the safety of the whole world, and everyone in it. It frightened her, how much she loved him. She would give anything to be able to ease his pain, if only a little.

As she held back all the feelings she was so afraid to share with him, settling for a tender caress of his lower lip with hers, Sharon tried to will some of her confidence into Steve. She tried to pour some of her strength into him through the hands she splayed on his back under his jacket, sliding them across his bunched muscles with a little thrill. OK, maybe a larger-than-average thrill. Not that Steve needed strength, exactly. What he needed was the will to keep taking the fate of the world onto himself, crisis after crisis, day after day. Like today. _Another damn emergency_ , Sharon thought. _When he was already exhausted. When would he get a break?_

  
“You get him settled?” Bucky asked Agent Emerson as he slid lazily onto the credenza just outside the galley where Steve and Sharon were having a moment. Joss sat next to him, willing herself not to lean in and press her nose to his neck. Because damn it, he _did_ smell as good as she’d always imagined. _Shit_. 

“He’s fine. Got a drink into him, started him telling Agent Thomas stories of his glory days.” 

Bucky grinned. “You’re good with him, Agent Emerson.” 

“Joss. Please.” 

“Joss.” Ok, now she was wet. Bucky Barnes had said her name, just said her name, and that was all it took before her idiotic, miserable thong was soaked and she was ready to lay him out on the floor in front of the President of the United States. Two, in fact. 

“So. What can you tell me?” She asked, taking a breath she hoped would stop the hormones flooding into her system. 

“Not much. We don’t know much. Just enough to be concerned about the President at that event. What we were afraid of happened, so here we are.” 

“And what was that? What were you afraid of?” 

Bucky hesitated over his next words. “I’m sorry. I can’t say.” He watched Joss Emerson absorb that. She didn’t look any happier about it than he’d be in her place. 

“Right.” She nodded stiffly. “Just… I know whatever the threat is, it’s not a bomb. And I know that I’m no Avenger. I’m not even S.H.I.E.L.D. But I _am_ Secret Service, which means I’m trained and I know how to keep my mouth shut. It also means I’m sworn to protect him.” She indicated the President over her shoulder. “Just don’t forget I’m here. _We_ , I mean. _We’re_ here.” She blushed and indicated the other Secret Service agents on the plane with an embarrassed flick of her hand. 

“Don’t worry. You’ll get him back to yourselves quick enough.” Bucky grinned. He could relate to her wanting to get these interlopers out of the way of her job. He’d have felt the same way. 

“It’s more than that. I’m offering to help. With… whatever this is.” 

“Well, I hope we won’t need it. But if we do, I know where to find you. And your two guns and five knives.” 

“Three and seven, actually,” she said with a smirk that Bucky could feel in his chest. “I picked up a few on the way out of the ballroom.” 

“Huh. I saw the MP5. What else?” 

She looked at him for a second, then apparently decided he was serious and poked two fingers down into the thick French twist at the back of her head. And pulled a Gerber 06 from inside it. 

Bucky broke into an intrigued smile as she handed it to him but, rather than look down at the folding knife, he watched her smooth out her dark hair again. He realized he really liked it. The way she was wearing it right now was all business, but he could tell there was a lot of it and he kind of wanted to pull out whatever was holding it and let it fall around her shoulders. In fact, now that he really looked at her, Bucky was suddenly struck by the fact that Agent Joss Emerson was actually a bombshell. And the way her brown eyes sparkled as she pulled a tac knife from her hair – a Gerber 06 switchblade, no less – suggested that she had a wild streak. _Interesting_. 

But it was when she pulled a Benchmade Infidel from one of the cutouts at her waist that Bucky started to think this was a girl he’d like to get to know. He whistled low and took it from her, flicking the long, thin blade out the front. “Sweet,” he breathed. 

“Yeah. It’s my favorite, actually.” 

“The President know you have one of these? They’re illegal in some states.” 

“You kidding? I’m sitting like this so he won’t see it. If he does, he’s gonna want to play with it some more.” 

“I guess he was a SEAL. Probably isn’t afraid of a little steel.” 

“Just the opposite. The press gives him a hard time about his guns, calls him ammosexual. Uh-uh. Man’s all about knives.” 

“Speaking of SEALs, I just got this,” Bucky said, pulling his new SOG Seal Strike from a sheath at the small of his back. 

Joss’s eyes went wide. “Oh, that is nice…” She took it from him and he watched her test the weight and balance. Just the way she handled it showed Bucky that this was a woman who knew knives. 

“Wanna see the best one?” 

“Yeah,” she gushed. 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Joss could feel a point pressing against her ribs. She looked down to see that Bucky was holding an evil-looking, matte black push dagger against her. She wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that she hadn’t even seen him move, or the wicked grin on his face that made her heart stutter. Either way, she was pretty sure somewhere a cardiologist was feeling a disturbance in the Force. 

“You think my _switch_ is illegal? I’m pretty sure I’m not even supposed to be _looking_ at that.” 

Bucky liked her reaction. A lot. For the next ten minutes, they admired the small knife, meant to be held in a fist and punched into the body. Bucky had designed this one, and had a lot to say about it. 

Aft of them, in the galley, Sharon bumped a hip against Steve and pointed at the weapons show and tell happening a few feet away. Turning, Steve took in the scene and raised an eyebrow, then laughed quietly. He was shaking his head when he turned back to Sharon, but his fond grin and the warm note in his voice belied his attempt to appear to disapprove. “Believe it or not, that’s flirtation for Bucky.” 

“That’s terrifying.” 

“Yeah, well,” Steve chuckled. “Buck’s got a very particular type.” 

The way Bucky’s grey-blue eyes looked at her over his wide, easy smile made Joss wonder whether they’d lost cabin pressure. She actually thought she might lose consciousness, the way her head was spinning. She realized suddenly that this might have been a mistake. Maybe she shouldn’t be sitting here, her leg actually touching Bucky Barnes’s knee, their hands touching repeatedly as they examined the custom push dagger. It was one thing to do a little bit of – OK, a not unobsessive amount of – fangirling over a good-looking famous dude. But this was The Job. She started to question the wisdom of offering her services in this situation, because she couldn’t be sure she would be able to concentrate the way she needed to with Bucky Barnes around. 

When he saw her face change, Bucky figured the reason was fairly obvious. 

“Listen,” he said, sliding the knife back into wherever he’d pulled it from. “I understand you wantin’ to be in the loop. Believe me. Nobody’s tryin’ to cut you out of anything; we got nothing but respect for you guys. It’s just… shit tends to get weird around us. Well, that’s not exactly right. We go where shit’s already weird. Anyway, the point is, you don’t want any of this.” 

Joss nodded. “I don’t want anybody to fuck with my President, either, but if they do, I’ll be there. That’s all I’m saying. I’m here.” 

“With an O6 in your hair,” he grinned. “Got it. If there’s a role for you, I won’t hesitate. Promise.” _Huh_ , Bucky thought, realizing he actually meant that. 

***** 

Sam Wilson could be a charming guy. An entertaining guy. A guy who could catch the attention of a roomful of thugs and keep it, if the need arose. 

The need arose. 

He could see Agent Herrera looking around whatever this place was, and it was obvious from the way her eyes took in everything that she knew what she was doing. Twice now, one of Arias’s goons had noticed her basically casing the joint and rudely barked at her to sit back down at the table. 

She never did. She’d stand there for a while, but Sam watched her in his peripheral vision and recognized her gradual, inevitable drift away again, always toward one of the doors. He decided to help her, launching into a long, somewhat fact-based series of stories about his early days testing the EXO-7 for the Air Force. The more Sam crashed, the more they laughed. Even Arias was diverted for a while. It wasn’t until he saw Herrera glide silently back into the room from one of the open doors that Sam finally stopped spinning tales. Her timing was good; he was running out of lies. But the look Herrera gave him told Sam that she’d found what she’d been looking for. 

Two hours after arriving at Arias’s bunker, or whatever it was, Sam and Agent Herrera were chauffeured back to the hotel where the Presidential event was to have taken place. They sat next to one another on the back seat, saying little, and nothing important. Sam had no doubt that whatever they said would be recorded, or at least reported back to Arias. He also had no doubt that Herrera had seen something. She was almost bursting out of her skin, vibrating with excitement even as she schooled her expression to seem bland. 

The hotel was unscathed by the night’s events, other than the unholy mess left behind by the herd of overgroomed assholes trying to push their way out when the evacuation began. Sam led Agent Herrera past the doors to the ballroom and down an out-of-the-way hall to a small conference room where a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent they both knew stood guard. They all nodded to each other, and the guard stepped aside to allow Sam to guide Agent Herrera in with a hand on the small of her back. 

Sam didn’t even wait long enough to acknowledge anyone in the room. The second the door closed, he had a hand around Herrera’s upper arm and pulled her around to face him. 

“What?” He asked, standing too close to her in his eagerness to hear what she had to say. She didn’t seem to notice, because she was just as eager to tell him what she’d seen. She was actually panting a little, her deep brown eyes shining with excitement. Sam’s body noticed. He was a professional, sure, but he was still a man, and… _Holy shit_. 

__“That place,” Herrera began. “Arias’s lair, or whatever you want to call it. It’s got an insane amount of power running to it.”_ _

__“What do you mean?”_ _

“Did you notice all the pipes and tubes running along the ceiling in that underground garage? Some of them were for water, steam, whatever, but a lot of them – _most_ of them, were conduits for electrical wires. There were way too many of them, and some of them had to have high-voltage electrical wiring in them. And those doors from that… conference room or whatever. Two of them led to corridors, just basically concrete hallways with more pipes and conduits running along them. It’s underground, and it’s concrete, right? So there’s no way to hide them, and why would you in a place like that? So I got a good look at them, and I’m telling you, that place has more power running into it than most skyscrapers. There’s something big and power-hungry down there to need that much electricity feeding it.” 

__As she was speaking, Natasha and Bruce had come over to listen. They both had questions that began general and very quickly got technical enough that they left Sam in their dust. He looked over at Clint, who was squatting on a table watching something on a monitor. Strolling closer, Sam saw that it was video of the tornado. He gasped._ _

“ _Mother of_ \- Is that the one here?” 

__“Yeah, but don’t get too excited. As tornadoes go, it’s kind of a piece of shit. Only an EF-2, and it wasn’t on the ground for more than ten minutes.”_ _

__“Well, you sure sounded excited when you saw it,” Sam noted._ _

“I know, and it’s kinda buggin’ me. It _looked_ big. I mean, it was dark and all, but with the city lights illuminating the clouds, I could still see it pretty good, and it _seemed_ … I don’t know. Something’s off about it. Something about the whole storm just doesn’t _look_ right. Bruce has some fancy-ass meteorologist working on it. She’s meeting us in New York.” 

__Sam watched the video, thinking that if this tornado didn’t impress Clint, he definitely wouldn’t want to see one that did. It looked wicked._ _

__“Hey,” Clint said quietly, nudging Sam with his elbow and sliding his eyes over toward the group who were excitedly discussing the power lines Agent Herrera had seen in the underground facility Arias had called “Site B.”_ _

__“What’s she like?” Clint asked in an amused undertone, indicating Agent Herrera._ _

“She’s a professional woman doin’ a job, is what she’s like, you sexist shithead.” 

“Uh-huh,” Clint grinned. “You got nowhere with her.” 

“I wasn’t tryna… Man, shut the hell up,” Sam screeched, trying to stay quiet. He gave Clint the dirtiest look he could manage, then stalked back over to the group to rejoin the discussion of what Herrera had seen. 

Clint just laughed. 

***** 

The flight from Washington D.C. to New York was just over an hour long, but the general atmosphere among those who piled into the obscenely luxurious vehicle for the drive from the private airfield to Stark Tower was one of exhaustion. Joss wasn’t sure what to call this thing; the closest thing she could come up with was “Limo Bus”. Everyone from the plane sat on the plush, curvy seats that lined both sides of the vehicle, while Tony Stark offered them a variety of drinks from the semicircular bar – an actual damn _bar_ \- that curved out between two of the long seats on one side. Everything that wasn’t black was red and gold, including the neon light that poured out from under the seats and across the ceiling. 

__Joss must have shaken her head, or made a face, because Tony stopped his manic bartending and pointed at her accusingly._ _

__“You don’t like my bus,” he snapped, keeping his finger in the air, directed at her, as he scowled._ _

__“I’m expecting strippers any moment,” she blurted before she could think better of it._ _

__President Lattimore, on her left, sucked in his breath in disapproval. “Joss, for heaven’s sake. The man is our host.”_ _

__Joss, appalled and mortified, began to sputter. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I didn’t mean to… I just… It’s… a lot.”_ _

“ _I’m_ a lot, Miss Secret Service. And just for that, no cocktail for you.” 

With that, he turned his head and began taking drink orders from those on the other side of the bar, dismissing her entirely. 

Joss suddenly liked the red neon light very much, because it hid the deep blush she knew was the reason her entire face was burning. It didn’t help that she could hear Bucky Barnes snickering on the other side of President Lattimore. 

The former President held his drink out to her, leaning in too close. “I’d be happy to share mine with you.” 

“Thank you, Sir, but I’m on duty anyway.” 

Joss didn’t say another word for the rest of the way to Stark Tower. 


	3. One For All, And All That Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce Banner reunites with a lost love. Clint Barton remembers when, and why, he didn't kill Natasha Romanoff despite his orders. Bucky Barnes gets royalties from Avengerswear. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark have _not_ buried the hatchet. Sam Wilson is outranked by the woman he's interested in. Everybody has mimosas for breakfast because that's what you do in Stark Tower. That's no tornado. Sharon Carter is having none of Steve's nonsense.

Bruce Banner had gathered as much data as possible about the latest event, and had done as much with it as he could with the equipment he’d brought to Washington D.C. He needed to get back to his lab in New York and get to work. He tried to sleep, but found himself staring at the sunrise from the window of another Stark jet, rolling ideas through his head and trying to plan his next steps. Trying not to think about Catherine Mulready. 

He hadn’t wanted to call her. Hadn’t wanted to barge back into her life when he’d promised her he wouldn’t. But he’d had no choice. She was one of maybe four people on the planet with the knowledge and ability to help him, and the other three were scattered across the globe. Of course, he wasn’t in love with the other three, which was a significant complicating factor. 

She’d taken his call. Just picked up the phone with a casual, “Hello, Bruce,” like the last time they’d seen each other they hadn’t both been crying. And when he’d asked her how she was, she’d actually answered, rather than simply shutting him down with the “fine,” he deserved. Like she was happy and it was no big thing that he’d called. Which is what he wanted; he’d told her to get over him and be happy, it was just… He didn’t know that her actually doing that would hurt quite this much. It was one thing to miss her, like he did every damn day. It was another to know that she didn’t miss him. That she’d moved on. Just like he’d told her to.

Clint Barton wasn’t sleeping, either. He was looking down at Natasha, the only person on the plane who _was_ sleeping. Her head rested in his lap, her beautiful, shiny red hair spilling down his thigh to pool on the cushion next to him. As soon as they’d boarded the jet, they’d just gravitated together, settling on the sofa near the center, as if they’d had reserved seats. It had always been like that for them, from the very beginning. As he stroked her smooth, sleek hair, Clint thought about the day they met, and the almost instant sensation he’d had that they’d always known each other. And now, they really _had_ known each other for a lifetime. He could no longer remember, couldn’t even imagine anymore, what it would be like without Natasha Romanoff in his life. 

And in his heart. 

It had been many years since they’d met, since that day when he’d first seen her and knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been wrong. Yes, Natasha was lethal and yes, she was working for the enemy. But she was nothing like they’d believed. Clint had seen immediately who she was. What she was. And instead of killing her, as he’d been sent to do, he’d brought S.H.I.E.L.D. one of the very best agents it ever had. 

It hadn’t been a choice. He’d tried to explain it a thousand times, and each time he’d failed to find the words that would explain how he’d simply _known_ that’s where she belonged. This woman, this beautiful, tortured, devastatingly lonely woman, was a hero. And he’d seen it as soon as he’d looked into her eyes. 

He huffed a quiet laugh at that. Part of the reason it was hard to explain how he’d known in that moment that Natasha Romanoff was a good woman was that she’d been covered in someone else’s blood at the time. And then she’d cursed him and fought him and led him on a four-day chase through three countries. It had taken most of that time for him to realize that, all the while, she was doing just enough to escape but never really hurting him. 

And then he’d caught her. Or maybe she caught him. He’d followed her to Tallinn and thought he’d lost her, entirely convinced she’d found a way to cross the Gulf into Finland. He’d been devastated. Clint didn’t give a rat’s ass about explaining to his superiors at S.H.I.E.L.D. that she’d escaped. They knew how good she was, and they’d expected that. What he cared about was her. So he’d holed up in a ratty old dockside inn for the night, nursing his wounds and a bottle of black-market vodka. He’d been standing, wearing nothing but jeans and looking out the dirty window at the poor fucks trudging around in the thick slush on the street, when she’d just… been there. 

He’d heard a scrape behind him and turned to see Natasha, no longer bloody, but showing definite signs of having been on the run, sitting at the tiny table in his room and drinking straight from his bottle of vodka. She’d given him a smug little salute with the bottle, stood up, and offered it to him. He took it from her, swigged a mouthful, and then moved to stand face to face with her, leaning his arm behind her to set the bottle back on the table. Neither of them was surprised that she didn’t move away, but slid one hand around his neck and the other down his bare chest to the button of his jeans.

They’d stayed there, in that damp, dingy little inn, for three days, sleeping for a couple hours at a time between rounds of hard, messy, athletic sex. They barely spoke. They asked each other no questions and shared no information beyond moans and cries and instructions. And when it was over, Clint had simply stated that he was taking Natasha to the U.S. with him, and she had not objected.

*****

Stark Tower was not your usual skyscraper, in pretty much any way. Tony had no trouble at all housing a planeload of surprise guests, one of whom was the President of the United States. A lot of things bugged Tony, but housing important people wasn’t one of them. That was what Friday and his staff were for. Besides, he had other things on his mind. He was anxious for Bruce to arrive so they could start comparing notes and, until then, he just planned to lock himself in his lab and work with the data he had so far. The rest of the team could take care of the guests. Even the damn President. Well, Presidents.

Tony almost made it. He was _that_ close to getting into his lab and away from everyone, especially the newly-bearded, tank-like asshole who was even now getting off the other elevator. _Fuck._ It was still dark, _way_ too early in the damn morning for this. 

“I thought we should talk,” Steve said, wearing his patented Wholesome and Earnest© expression.

“No, we really shouldn’t.”

“Tony-“

“You should get back in the elevator - I designed them so they go both up _and_ down, I’m clever like that – and you and your pet assassin should deal with our guests. Isn’t that what you do? Aren’t you, like, the Jawline of Democracy, or the Shoulders of Freedom or something? Babysitting the President seems right up your alley. I have work to do.”

“Damn you, Tony, we have a deal. I expect you to hold up your end.”

“Yeah, you know what, Not Chuck Norris? I _am_ holding up my end. You might have noticed me last night, right next to you the whole damn time, getting the President out of there, hauling him here on _my_ plane, to _my_ secure building. That was me, holding up my end. I’m all about keeping the Avengers together. One for all, and all that shit. But here’s the thing. A little of you? That goes a long, _long_ fucking way, and I’ve had about as much Captain America as I can stomach right now. Someone tries to take over the world? Call me. I’m in. But until that happens, I _seriously_ need you to fuck off.”

Tony turned on his heel and slammed his palm down on the sensor that would open the doors for only him.

“So that’s it? This is as good as it’s gonna get? We just coexist and you avoid me and –“

Tony wheeled around and stormed up to Steve until they were chest to chest, with Tony’s livid expression mere inches from Steve’s stubbornly set jaw. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. Because we were a team, and we were something, y’know? We did some amazing shit together. I thought that meant something, that we’d _built_ something. And then you turned around and took a blowtorch to the whole damn thing like it had all been some cute little hobby for you and you were on to the next thing.”

“I had no choice,” Steve hissed. “It was _Bucky_.”

“Yeah, no, I get that. I read the files, I know what they did to him. I had a lot of time to think while you were in Wakanda, and me and him? We’re good. But me and you? No. And I don’t see that changing.”

“How do you expect us to be a team if we don’t work together? Train together? Trust eachother?”

“Yeah. I know. _That’s_ what you cost us.” Tony turned around and went into his lab. “See you around, _Cap_ ,” he sneered as he punched the button to shut the sliding door between them. 

*****

Craig Thomas had volunteered to take the first shift in the President’s suite, along with another two Secret Service officers. Joss Emerson had agreed to relieve Agent Thomas at seven, and she was just fumbling her way to consciousness and beginning to form the hazy thought of caffeine when she heard a quick, solid knock on the door of the room she’d been assigned. Frowning, she rolled off the edge of the shockingly comfortable bed and to her feet.

She’d groaned as she crossed the room, but it was nothing to the groan she let out when she looked through the peephole into the hallway. Glancing down with a whimper at the nightgown she wore, she opened the door a crack and poked her head around it. 

Bucky stood there, slight confusion clouding his blue eyes, despite the amused quirk of an eyebrow. “Are you… Everything OK?”

“I’m good. Thanks. I just, um… I just woke up.”

“I see that,” he grinned, indicating her sleep-scrambled hair. “I brought you coffee.” He held up a very large paper cup with a lid, from which came a scent almost as seductive as he was. 

Joss reached out a hand, but didn’t open the door any wider. “Oh, man. You are officially my new best friend.”

As he handed the cup to her, Bucky stepped closer and tried to look past her into the room. His expression was a little more serious now. “You sure you’re OK? I wanted to talk to you about something. If you’re… You don’t have company in there, do you?”

“No! For Pete’s sake, we’ve been here, what? Six hours? And you think I…”

“Well, President Lattimore _does_ seem to really like you.”

“That’s not even remotely funny.”

“It will be, once you get a little caffeine in you. C’mon, let me in. I wanna get your take on something.”

“Give me a chance to put some clothes on, will ya’? I thought you were from the ‘40’s, aren’t you supposed to be embarrassed that I’m not dressed?”

Bucky grinned, enjoying Joss’s discomfort. “I’m a quick study. Anyway, you have clothes on, I can see your sleeve. What’s the problem?”

“It’s… I just…” She looked down at herself again. “I can’t. Come back later.”

“Joss. What’s going on?” Suddenly, he was serious. He put his right hand on the door, ready to push it open unless she gave him a very good reason not to.

“Damn it,” she sighed, stepping back and opening the door so he could enter. 

Bucky stepped in, looked her from head to toe, and instantly had to fight not to laugh, although he didn’t fight very fucking hard, if you asked Joss. 

The nightgown she wore was basically a black, long-sleeved, V-necked T-shirt that came to mid-thigh, which wouldn’t have been a problem except for the left arm. The gray left arm with black stripes of various thicknesses at random intervals and a large red star on the shoulder. 

“I hate Tony Stark,” she spat, hunching her shoulders and looking everywhere but at Bucky.

“I don’t. I get royalties from those. And they’re selling like crazy.” Bucky’s eyes danced as he affected a way-too-innocent expression.

“You laugh, and your reign as my new best friend will come to a bloody end.”

“Well, if you don’t like it, why are you wearing it?”

“Stark got some store to deliver clothes for us to wear today, but he said this was all he could do as far as sleepwear. If the damned President isn’t wearing one of these, I am going to have some very unpleasant things to say about this place on Yelp.”

He chuckled. “Well, it looks good on you, if that makes you feel any better. May I?” He indicated the sofa that sat across the room, under a wall of windows with an extraordinary view of Manhattan. It really was a stupendously luxurious room, especially when Bucky Barnes was standing in it. Joss looked down at her coffee. It was tempting as hell, but if he was standing there, that meant she was still dreaming, and this was one REM cycle she really did _not_ want to interrupt.

*****

On five hours’ sleep, Anita Herrera looked as if she’d stepped out of the pages of one of those glossy magazines they put a blocker in front of at the grocery store so little kids won’t see cleavage. Sam Wilson, not so much. He was standing in the large communal kitchen that served this floor of luxury hotel-like rooms and suites, finishing his second cup of coffee and beginning to wonder if cup number one was ever going to kick in. The grainy dryness of his red, swollen eyes could not be attractive, and he almost wished Agent Herrera wasn’t here right now to see it. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw her pick the carafe out of the huge, stainless steel, state-of-the-art coffee maker that looked like it belonged in the cockpit of a Space Shuttle. She carried it, practically gliding across the floor, until she was standing next to where he leaned against the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. She lifted it in question and, when he held out his cup, refilled it, smiling. Suddenly, Sam was wide awake. 

“Short night,” she commented.

“Yeah. I guess Banner and the others have landed now. They should be here soon, and maybe we’ll get some answers.”

“About that. I’ve been thinking. We need to get back into Arias’s… bunker? Lair? Hideout? Whatever he calls it.”

“What do you have in mind, Agent Herrera?” Sam lifted an interested eyebrow.

“Well, for one thing, I’m not calling you ‘Mr. Wilson.’ So my name is Anita.” The cheeky smile and flip of her hair just about dropped Sam where he stood. “And for another, I’m thinking you and I should go on a date.”

Sam’s mind skipped like a dirty CD. “Uh…”

“How are you at breaking and entering?” Anita asked as she crossed the floor again to replace the coffee carafe. 

“Breaking and entering. You’re not seriously thinking we can sneak into that… underground fortress?”

“We need to get in there. You got a better idea?”

“That’s asking a lot on three hours of sleep. But let me think about it.”

“You do that,” she said over her shoulder, opening the huge refrigerator and beginning to take stock of the very full shelves. “In the meantime, Stark said to make ourselves at home, so I’m going to make breakfast. You’re going to help.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I was a Navy Warrant Officer. I outrank you.”

“Shit.”

*****

Breakfast was a noisy, chaotic affair made bearable by the fragile, temporary camaraderie among those who had been unexpectedly and unwillingly been brought together in New York. Sam and Anita had been busy, and everyone had been lured into the common room by the delicious smells coming from the kitchen. Even both Presidents were there, although President Burke spent much of the time on the secure phone Tony had put at his disposal. 

Tony Stark was nowhere to be found, since Bruce Banner had now arrived and the two were holed up in Bruce’s lab on one of the top floors. Which left Steve playing host, which wasn’t his strong suit. As it turned out, however, it _was_ Sharon’s, and she came to his rescue quickly, smoothly, and without question. So smoothly, in fact, that no one noticed. No one except Steve.

There were heaping serving bowls of scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, spiced with a Cuban flair, that everyone devoured, along with seemingly endless platters of bacon, toast, and fruit. Anita had found a bottle of ridiculously expensive champagne, with which even the President spiked his orange juice. Sitting around the huge table, groups of strangers became almost friendly, with Sharon gently guiding conversations and smoothing over occasional quiet spells and rough spots.

Air Force One was on its way, now that the weather was clear in D.C. and no further energy spikes had been detected there. Since they hadn’t recurred in any of the places they’d appeared so far, there was no reason to suppose Washington would be any different. President Burke was expected to be back in the White House by afternoon.

President Lattimore, however, lived in Mobile, and wasn’t happy that he wouldn’t be on that flight. Instead, Bucky had arranged to fly him back home in a Quinjet, with his Secret Service detail and Joss Emerson. That’s what he’d wanted to talk over with her earlier, and she was still having occasional retroactive blushes about being caught out wearing an officially licensed Avengerswear™ Winter Soldier nightgown. 

Everett Burke was known to be a big eater, and to have a sincere appreciation for good food. Fortunately for him, he liked to exercise as much as he liked to eat, and had a reputation among the Secret Service for being extremely competitive when they had to accompany him on his runs. He managed to retain much of his SEAL-era conditioning despite now having a desk job that required him to attend banquets and dinners almost nightly. He managed to put down the phone for long enough to tuck into an enormous plate of breakfast, engaging a hollow-eyed Clint and entirely refreshed Natasha in a series of questions about last night’s phenomenon.

“Dr. Banner is convinced that the energy he’s detecting is responsible for the destructive events that follow, and he’s hopeful that he’ll be able to learn about the connection from the storm in Washington last night. He was able to gather an overwhelming amount of data on it, more than we have on any of the other events. He has a world-renowned meteorological scientist coming in today to consult, and we should have some answers soon,” Natasha said, her face a bland mask of competent calm that only Clint could see through. He could tell that she was, in fact, highly amused to find herself across the breakfast table from the leader of the free world, given her former occupation. 

For his part, Clint was just sleep-deprived enough to find the whole situation hilarious. The Secret Service agents around the table and surrounding the President seemed much more concerned about an as-yet theoretical threat than the fact that their principal was, at this moment, having mimosas with the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow. He was sorely tempted to ask Bucky and Natasha to list the number of ways they could kill him – hell, everybody in the room – using just what was currently within arms’ reach. Yeah, he should probably excuse himself and take a nap before he found himself answering uncomfortable questions in a soundproofed room somewhere beneath the Pentagon. 

Sharon stepped in. “Director Coulson and Captain Rogers have asked me to be your liaison to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, Sir. It’ll be my job to make sure that you know everything we know.”

“I appreciate that, Agent Carter,” the President replied, _almost_ retaining his placid mask of imperturbable authority without letting the twinge of disappointment show. “I’m used to working with Captain Rogers, but you’re much prettier.”

Half the room grinned, while the other half consciously restrained themselves from facepalming. How many times in his political career had Everett Burke gotten himself in trouble over inappropriate remarks like that? Sharon’s face showed nothing of her annoyance, or her gratitude that there were no reporters in the room. 

“Sir, you don’t want me,” Steve said with a self-deprecating smile that belied his irritation on Sharon’s behalf. “You need something punched, I’m your guy. Science and tech, that’s Sharon.”

She gave him the slightest nod of approval, while promising herself that, if she ever got the chance, she would thank him in a much more personal way for that. 

*****

The lobby of Stark Tower was much like Tony Stark himself: blatantly luxurious, faintly ridiculous, easy but dangerous to underestimate. Bruce knew there were a plethora of defensive systems that would make even approaching this level of the tower a suicide mission at a word from Tony. He looked around, trying to spot all the cameras, lasers, remotely-operated panels, and other fixtures that weren’t what they appeared to be. Tony liked to say that the strange sculpture in the middle of the fountain was actually a robot drone that could be controlled from several places only Tony and Friday knew, but he was never sure whether to believe that.

Bruce was exhausted, frightened, annoyed, frustrated, and anxious as he paced the area in front of the massive, ultra-modern reception desk, chewing on a thumbnail and, had he known it, muttering to himself. He paid no attention to the many people who steered extra-wide of him. In fact, he paid no attention to any of the passersby and tourists who thronged the lobby, having no idea that the strange, rumpled man scowling at the floor was, in fact, one of the Avengers they were there hoping to glimpse.

Preoccupied as he was, he knew the moment she appeared outside the tall, glass doors, squinting up at the landing platform jutting out into the morning sunshine and squaring her shoulders before she nodded to a young man in a suit who held the door open for her, and stepped inside. He stood, not breathing, just letting her happen to him all over again. Her jet-black hair was short now, rather than the long, straight fall it had been when he’d last seen her in London. Although he knew intellectually that it was an intentional style, his body thought the shaggy, spiky layers made her look like she’d just gotten out of bed, which he really didn’t need right this minute. Her suit was stylish and professional, but it fit her like a glove, reminding him of her body, which he _really fucking didn’t need_ right then. 

She saw him almost as soon as she entered the lobby. Did her steps falter a little? He thought so, but then, he wanted to think so. What he knew for sure was that she was smiling warmly when she came to stand in front of him. She took off her Ray-Bans and he was immediately struck anew by those piercing green eyes. 

“Hello, Bruce,” she said. Was it a little hesitant? A little tight?

“Catherine. Thank you so much for coming.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said in the Estuary accent he still heard in his most private fantasies. “I’m dying to get a look at what you’ve got.”

“I can’t wait to show you,” he grinned shyly. “Let’s go.”

Bruce waved her toward a bank of elevators down a hallway that was guarded on both sides by imposing men whose firearms were intentionally not well-concealed under the jackets of their dark suits. They nodded to him as he passed, having been briefed that he would be bringing a guest up to the Research floors. They weren’t worried that she might be armed or carrying anything they might not want on the upper floors of the tower. The elevator would silently scan her and invisibly detect any of several hundred dangerous organic and explosive materials. There was even radiation detection. If any of those scans showed a problem, the elevator would descend to the lobby and lock down until the doors opened on a fully suited Ironman. Tony took no chances with security.

They were alone on the elevator. It seemed quiet after the bustle of the lobby, especially because the thick, soft wool carpet and brocade wall panels absorbed sound, and the mechanism itself was all but silent. 

Bruce was staring. He knew he was. But he couldn’t help it any more than he could help the awed tone of voice in which he nearly whispered, “You look good, Catherine. I like your hair like that.”

She smiled self-consciously and seemed to be forcing herself to meet his eyes. “You look good, too,” she said softly. “I wasn’t sure what to expect. You’ve been through a lot these last years.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled mirthlessly. “You could say that. It’s not every day you get to battle an alien invasion.” 

“Speaking of that,” she said, now clearly avoiding his eyes. “I, uh… I know that you were responsible for destroying the ones that attacked my building. I don’t know if that was for me, but… I appreciated it. _You_ may be a superhero, but _I_ am decidedly not. I was scared shitless.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Bruce grinned, and she met his eyes again. “Don’t tell anyone.”

For a second, they just stood, grinning softly at one another. 

“Are you really OK?” She finally asked, no pretense now. “I can’t stop caring just because you tell me to.”

“I’m as OK as I always am,” he muttered. 

“That’s a shitty answer.”

“Yeah, well…” 

She sighed. 

“Have you ever met Tony Stark?” Bruce asked, fooling neither of them with his change of subject.

“Never. I’m afraid I’m going to be a little starstruck.”

“If you tell him I said this, I’ll deny it, but I’m a little starstruck myself. His mind is… not like other people’s.”

“So I understand. Anything I should beware of?”

Bruce barked a genuine laugh with a smile that, although he couldn’t know it, rocked Catherine back on her heels. “Pretty much anything having to do with him. We’re just lucky this particular crisis will have us working with a lot more theory than mechanical engineering. That’s the part where there’s usually explosions and inadvertent time travel, things like that.”

“What’ve I bloody gotten myself into?” She mumbled, loud enough that he knew it was intended to be a joke.

When the doors opened, they found themselves in a room that comprised most of this floor of the building, so spartan white that the morning sunlight streaming in made it seem uncomfortably bright. The scattered work stations throughout were almost bare except for sparse bits of… some kind of electronic hardware whose purpose wasn’t immediately apparent to anyone who hadn’t seen it in action. Walking toward them through the sun-drenched room was Tony Stark, barefoot and wearing jeans that looked ancient, with a black T-shirt featuring a white decal of an old-school floppy disc. 

“Dr. Mulready! You have to be Dr. Mulready,” he said, holding out a hand for her to shake.

“Mr. Stark, it’s a pleasure.”

“Oh! You’re English! Cool. Bruce didn’t tell me that, just that you used to bone and then he dumped you. Something about being an enormous green douchebag. So. Let’s get started, we got a lot to show you.” 

Entirely oblivious of the effect of his words, Tony turned around to the closest white-topped table, a long, curved expanse with only a few of those electronic-looking odds and ends scattered atop it. Until he flung his arms wide and, so unexpectedly that Catherine jumped and let out an embarrassing yelp, a glowing screen appeared in mid-air. 

“Banner’s gonna bore you with a bunch of squiggles on a graph, but I know you’re a tornado expert, so I’m going to show you the really cool stuff. Starting with this.” He did something with a flick of his wrist and the screen was filled with video of the previous day’s tornado over Washington D.C.

They watched in silence for several minutes, Catherine’s entire attention laser-focused as the storm raged and the funnel wreaked devastation on the ground. “Anti-cyclonic rotation,” she murmured. “That’s interesting.”

“Why?” Bruce asked, watching her as she watched the screen, crinkling her nose and tilting her head to the left in a way that instantly flooded Bruce with nostalgia.

“The Coriolis effect. Less than five percent of tornadoes rotate clockwise in this hemisphere. Doesn’t mean anything on its own, it’s just rare.”

They watched for a few more minutes before Catherine stiffened and said, “Wait. What was that?”

“What was what?” Tony asked.

“Go back. Play the last ten seconds again.”

He did and they watched as a jagged lightning bolt shot across the sky. It was cool, but Tony wasn’t sure that it was particularly interesting. He looked curiously at Catherine.

“Can you slow it down?”

“I can do anything. How slow do you want it?”

“Frame by frame, if you can. Starting just before the lightning strike.”

He did, advancing the video and watching her as he did. 

“There!” She cried, pointing to the screen. “That.”

Tony and Bruce looked at each other. “OK, I’ll play,” Tony said. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

Catherine stepped up to the screen and pointed to the leading edge of the lightning bolt where it appeared to actually strike the side of the tornado. “See that? How the lightning looks like it’s poking a hole in the funnel?”

“Yeah…” Bruce answered tentatively.

“Now. Next frame.”

In the next frame, there appeared to be an actual divot forming in the wall of the funnel. 

“Next,” Catherine said, scowling.

In the next frame, the divot had grown and was clearly a bend in the wall of the tornado, making the funnel look like it was moving away from the lightning.

“Next.”

The effect became more pronounced in the next frame, and the next. The lightning strike lasted only a few frames beyond that, but it was clear, now that they had slowed it down, that the lightning had actually “dented” the funnel of the tornado, and caused it to bend away from the strike.

“OK. We see it now. So what?” Tony asked impatiently.

“So that can’t happen. Lightning isn’t powerful enough to affect a tornado, and the power surge doesn’t last long enough, even if it was. Whatever we’re looking at, it’s either not a tornado, or it’s not lightning. Or both.” 

*****

When breakfast was over, Steve and Sharon were left alone in the ravaged common room amid the greasy, jumbled remains. 

“Do you suppose we’re supposed to clean this up?” She asked, looking daunted at the possibility.

“Of course not. Tony’s got people for that,” Steve answered, with a look that told Sharon he disapproved of something about what he’d just said.

“What?”

Steve looked over at her, trying to cover his look with a smile. “Nothing. We don’t have to clean this up.”

“Did something happen between you and Tony?”

Steve blew out a breath in disgust. “Tony happened. I thought we were gonna try to get past this. I believed him that we’d put aside our anger and were going to try to figure things out for the good of the team.”

“But that isn’t true?”

“Doesn’t look like it. He told me to stay away from him unless someone’s trying to take over the world. In so many words.”

Sharon put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I know you really want things back the way they used to be.”

“It’s not about what I _want_. It’s about what the world _needs_. If the Avengers hadn’t been here, who would have stopped the Chitauri? The military? They were about to nuke the city! If it wasn’t for us, working together, New York would be gone now and maybe the Chitauri would be in control of Earth anyway.”

Steve stood up and began pacing the room, pent-up frustration and energy with no outlet urging him to action. 

“I’ve gotta find a way to get through to him. We have to work together. We don’t have a choice.”

“Steve,” Sharon began tentatively.

“What?” He stopped pacing to look at her.

“What have you and Tony… _said_ to eachother about what happened? About the Accords, and about The Raft, and Berlin?”

“Plenty. There’s a bloody bunker in Siberia that will show you, we had quite the conversation about that.”

Sharon stood then, walking over to where Steve stood in front of the wall of windows. She reached out hesitantly, laying her hands lightly on his chest, and was pleased to see him take a step toward her and rest a warm, heavy hand on each side of her waist. “That’s what I was afraid of. You haven’t talked about it at all.”

“We did, Sharon. I called him, and we met in Washington. You know that, you were there. We agreed that the Avengers is too important to end.”

“And that’s the only time you’ve sat down and talked about this?”

“Well… yeah. What else is there to say?”

Sharon basically banged her head against Steve’s chest in disgust. “ _Men_.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that, for a really smart guy, you’re a damn fool. That’s what it means. You need to talk to him, Steve. You need to talk, and you need to keep talking until you each understand what made the other take the position they did. And you need to apologize to each other.”

“Apologize? What the fuck for? He’s got us answering to a _committee_ , for fuck’s sake!”

“Yes, and he believes that’s the right thing. He _believes_ that. Do you really think _Tony Stark_ , of all people, would willingly submit to _anyone’s_ authority if he didn’t truly believe it was necessary? And do you know _why_ he thought it was necessary? Did you even _ask_?”

“I know why. Of course I asked, we argued about it for hours…”

“You argued. You both talked at each other – shouted, actually – and neither one heard a word the other said.”

“Whose side are you on, Sharon?” Steve yelled, letting go of her.

“Yours,” she said, keeping her voice as calm as she could. “Always yours. You have to know that.”

He frowned and turned toward the window, his face working as he thought through what she’d said.

“Steve.” 

After a moment, he turned back to her. She stepped to him again, this time wrapping her arms around his waist. His arms naturally encircled her, and she found herself pressed against his chest, looking up into his bright blue eyes. “Do you remember when we first met? _How_ we first met?”

“Of course I do.”

“I was on your side, there for you, even before you knew who I was. I stood with you when Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. I stood with you when you refused to sign the Accords, and when you went to Bucharest to try to keep Bucky from being captured. I kept you both from facing criminal charges, and I’ve worked like hell to help him get through all the other fallout of what Hydra made him do. Right?”

“Right,” Steve admitted softly, holding her a little closer.

“And then, when you were ready to try to approach Tony again, who made that happen?”

“You did.”

“Yeah. I did. So please tell me that you know I’m as loyal to you as anyone could be. You do know that, right?”

He looked into her eyes for a long, long moment. “I do know that, Sharon. I do. And I’ve been selfish as hell when it comes to you.”

Sharon rolled her eyes, lowering her forehead to rest against him and shaking her head. “I’m in love with a fucking moron,” she muttered to his chest. Then, looking up at him again, she said, “We’ll come back to that. Right now, I just need you to try to hear me about this.”

But Steve wasn’t hearing anything. He was blinking at her, his face an absolute mask of surprise. 

“What?” Sharon demanded sharply.

“You… You said…”

“I said you need to listen to me.”

“You said you’re in love with me.”

“I _said_ I’m in love with a moron, and that we’d come back to that. Focus!”

Steve smiled weakly, still looking at her with wonderment, as though he’d never seen her before but found her fascinating. It was definitely about time he looked at her like that, but right now she was trying to make a crucially important point that could have repercussions for the whole world.

“You said it yourself. You and Tony need to make up. You need to find a way to start working your way back to trusting one another. You both fucked up. Huge.”

“I didn’t-“

“You left him to deal with the Accords by himself. You turned half the team against him. And then you beat the shit out of him and threw your shield away like it was nothing.”

“I could have killed him. I didn’t.”

“No, you just left him for dead.”

Steve broke away angrily and turned back toward the window. “I think you and I might have different definitions of the word loyalty, Sharon.”

Undeterred, Sharon just closed the distance again. “Loyalty doesn’t mean saying what you want to hear. Loyalty means saying what you _need_ to hear. And you need to hear Tony’s side of the story, which is what I just told you. Do you really think you’re blameless in all this?”

Steve scoffed furiously, but didn’t answer. 

“Just think about it,” Sharon said, giving his arm a squeeze. “I’m going to go check on Tony and Bruce.”

She walked slowly across the large room, wondering whether she’d just ruined any chance she might have had with the man she loved. The man she’d just, entirely without her knowledge or consent, told she loved him. She hoped he would stop her, or say something to let her know he understood that she was trying to help him, and Tony, and the Avengers.

He didn’t.


	4. Whatever Works

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are nerds. Sharon Carter tells Steve Rogers he needs to take better care of himself, and gives him his first lesson. Bucky Barnes flies the former President back to where he came from, and the fasten seatbelt sign is most assuredly ON.

Sharon immediately saw that Bruce’s meteorologist colleague was just as convinced as he was that the tornado in Washington hadn’t been a natural phenomenon. She could also see that all three of those working with monitors and readouts and a very cool 3-D model of the storm with the tornado swirling down from it were deeply troubled. Tony’s hair was sticking up at all sorts of angles, as though he’d been pulling at it. Bruce looked even more dark and morose than usual. 

“I just came to check on you. Do you need anything?”

Tony waved nonchalantly without looking away from the complex display he was manipulating in mid-air. “Nah. We’re good.”

“All right. Air Force One is half an hour out. The Presidents are leaving, if you wanted to say goodbye. Chopper’s already on the landing pad.”

This time she got no response at all. All three of them were completely submerged in whatever it was they were doing. 

“Can we expect any answers anytime soon?” She asked, touching Bruce on the arm to get his attention.

“Wha- No. We’re working on it, but there’s a lot to go through. We’re gonna need time. Just make sure Coulson’s watching for any more of those energy spikes.”

“Will do. Call me if you need anything.” She waited, but again no one was paying the slightest attention to anything but whatever it was they were looking at.

From the lab, she went to the little observation room off the landing pad. Outside, all the Secret Service agents, both Presidents, the first lady, and Bucky were already on the helicopter. She stood next to Steve and waved as they took off, angling toward the airport where President Burke would meet Air Force One. From there, the helicopter would take President Lattimore and his Secret Service detail to the Quinjet for their trip to Alabama to return Lattimore to his home. 

Sharon turned and gave Steve a thin smile, then moved toward the elevator. Steve followed, putting a hand on her arm. “Sharon, can we talk?”

“Of course,” she said, stopping and turning fully toward him, her stomach in knots.

“Not here. Let’s go somewhere more private. Uh, my rooms?”

“Sure.”

Neither of them said anything as the elevator descended to the residential floor, or even as they walked side by side, not touching, to the suite Steve usually occupied when he was here. He opened the door and gestured her in. It wasn’t until she’d taken a seat on the edge of a deep reading chair, with him sitting on the end of the couch just next to it, that he spoke. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped between them.

“I’m sorry,” he began.

“You don’t owe me an apology.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I do. I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re right. I had reasons for what I did, but I know what it must have looked like – _felt_ like – to Tony. And I shouldn’t have been rude to you for being right.”

“It’s OK. You weren’t rude. We’re good.”

He looked up into her eyes. “Sharon… What you said…”

 _Shit_. She’d been afraid of this when he said he wanted to talk. She was in no way prepared for this moment. Sharon had never meant to say anything remotely like what she’d said. It had just slipped out. And now, sitting here with him looking up into her face with spellbound expectation, she had a choice to make. All her instincts screamed to make light of it. Or to apologize. And yet, she knew that this was her opportunity. Her chance to tell him what she felt for him, what she saw in him. It might never come again. 

She steeled herself. “We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to,” she whispered. “I’m honestly not sure I’m ready to. But I’m not going to deny I meant it.”

It took every ounce of courage she had to keep returning his gaze. She had no courage left to say anything more.

“You know what my life is like.”

“Like I said, we don’t have to talk about this. I’m a big girl, Steve.”

“No, that’s not… I’m not trying to make excuses, or let you down easy. I guess I sort of hoped it was obvious I have feelings for you, too. But, I mean, that’s the thing. I shouldn’t. My life, it’s… It’s not mine. I can’t get involved, because I don’t have anything to give you. Not even my time.”

“That’s a load of horse shit.”

Steve surprised laugh rang out in the quiet room. “Uh… Okaaaaaay…”

“Do you know what I see when I look at you? I see a man who has absolutely no idea who he is. I get that your body’s changed; you’ve said often enough that it doesn’t feel like _yours_. And I understand that you’re living in a time that, for you, isn’t home, either. I don’t pretend to know what that’s like.”

“How could you? I think only Bucky and me can really know what it’s like.”

“But that’s not it, Steve. The thing with you is, you’re all about protecting other people, defending them. Doing what’s right. All of those are excellent, sterling qualities. They’re _you_. They’re why Erskine chose you. But there’s another side to those things. It means you do nothing but give, all the time. And sure, you wouldn’t be so selfless if it wasn’t rewarding, on some level. But here’s the thing. Even though you’re a supersoldier, even though you’re Captain America, you’re still _human_. You’re still a _man_. You’re finite. You can’t go on giving and giving, protecting and defending everyone but yourself, forever. There’s only so much of you, so much inside of you, to give away if you won’t ever accept anything back.”

For a moment, Steve simply looked at her, a wrinkle of concentration between his brows. Then he gave his head a slight shake and said quietly, “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means that I can see the weariness in your eyes, Steve. I can see that the weight of the world is getting awfully damn heavy on you. And, holy shit, it _would_. Because you don’t let anyone else help you carry it.”

Steve sat back and pulled a hand through his hair, huffing. “That’s not true. There’s S.H.I.E.L.D. There’s the rest of the Avengers. I’m not fighting alone.”

“I’m not talking about fighting. I’m talking about _you_. Steve Rogers, the man. Who’s he got? Who holds _him_ up?”

“I… well, I have friends. I mean… I have you, and Bucky, and the team…”

“Yeah. You do. But you keep all of us at arm’s length. Let us in. Let _me_ in. I think you need that. I think you need that desperately.”

Steve sighed and frowned down at his legs, saying nothing. Sharon stayed as she was, just watching him, letting her words sink in. Finally, after several full minutes, he looked up at her from under his eyelashes. 

“I think you might be right,” he whispered, emotion choking his voice. “I’ll… I’ll try. If you’ll help me.”

“Of course I will,” she said softly, reaching out for his hand with a gentle smile.

“Right now, I have to go see what’s going on in the lab.”

“No. You don’t.”

Steve looked up, surprised. “I should-“

Now Sharon’s smile widened, even as she shook her head. “No. You shouldn’t.”

Steve cocked an eyebrow, genuinely confused. “I don’t…”

“It’s Tony and Bruce’s turn to carry the weight of the world right now. You don’t have to take that on.”

“But I… I don’t know what else to do.”

“Want me to tell you?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Friday?” Sharon called, a little louder than they’d been speaking.

“Yes, Agent Carter?”

“Are the comms in the building working?” She didn’t take her eyes from Steve’s, and her lips remained curved in that smile.

“Yes, Agent Carter. Would you like to speak to someone?”

“No. I’d just like you to tell me if the comms between this room and the lab are working.”

“Yes, Agent Carter. They are in perfect working order.”

“So if Mr. Stark or Dr. Banner have something to tell us, they’ll be able to do it instantly, right?”

“Yes, Agent Carter.”

“Excellent. Then we’d like some privacy, unless there’s something urgent. Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

Steve noticed that Sharon’s eyes had a definite glint of mischief, or something, in them. He started to get a better idea what that something was when she stood and shifted her weight, sliding into his lap with one arm going around his neck and the other hand lifted to his face, where she began stroking a knuckle down his jaw. She felt warm and strong, and he didn’t hesitate to gather her to him. 

“Now. What you do is, you let the geniuses do what they do, and you take care of yourself so you’ll be ready when it’s your turn.”

Sharon felt a surge of joy at the lustful interest already taking over Steve’s expression. 

“How, exactly, do you propose I do that?”

“You let me kiss you,” she answered throatily. “ _Really_ kiss you. And you kiss me back. Think you can handle that?”

“Oh, yeah,” he grinned.

Steve’s lips were firm and warm on Sharon’s, and for a very long time they simply kissed as they’d been doing, caressing one another’s lips and nipping at each other’s mouths. But this kiss was different. Sharon meant it to be, and she’d been ready to be the one to push it into new territory, but Steve beat her to it. She felt his tongue licking at her bottom lip, not intrusive or demanding, just lightly tasting. She hoped he could feel her smile, and used the tip of her own tongue to trace his upper lip. His tiny moan unleashed a flock of butterflies low in her stomach, and she felt her body’s response lower down when he tipped his head just a bit and licked into her mouth. Oh, this man knew how to _kiss_.

The combination of the gentle, tender way he was holding her, the warmth of his hand splayed across her back, and the suddenly hungry way he was kissing her, invading her mouth with his tongue, made Sharon gasp. He seemed to like that, because he moved his hand from her hip to cradle her chin and took firm control of the kiss, moaning out loud this time. This was by far the most intimate, fully open-mouthed kiss they’d shared, and Sharon felt a rush of pleasure at how good Steve tasted, how masterfully he was holding and kissing her. She scooted her hips, trying to get closer to him. If she’d known what really kissing him was like, she’d have been on his lap long before this.

“Sharon…” he breathed, sending lightning through her, and spread his thighs a little, pulling her in. She let him take their kisses wherever he wanted, responding with all the urgency and passion she felt. 

At first, she wasn’t sure what he intended when he slid a hand under her legs and stood with her in his arms, as though she weighed no more than a kitten. He took the two steps to the center of the long couch, then gently let go of her legs to set her on her feet. He stood, pressed full-length against her and kissed her deeply for a long time, cradling the back of her head in his hand. When he sat again, he turned his body and laid down, pulling her to him so that she was lying full-length on top of him. 

For a seemingly endless stretch of time, it was enough, feeling all of him, mouths hungrily devouring one another, moaning freely now. Until Sharon began to let herself truly relax against Steve’s body, and felt how aroused he was. The insistent warmth between her legs became a wet, demanding heat. Feeling his firm cock beneath her, she couldn’t keep from sliding against him, slowly and tentatively at first. But as she felt him move with her, she instinctively and irresistibly spread her legs to straddle him, giving in to the almost overwhelming urge to grind against him with the most intimate part of her. He groaned, sliding a hand into her hair and closing his fingers around a handful. He didn’t pull, but it felt possessive, demanding, the acknowledgement she’d needed that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. It was tempting, so tempting, to stay there, rubbing their bodies together, tongues ravaging mouths, groaning, until they made each other come. But that wasn’t what Sharon wanted.

She slid her hands out from under his massive shoulders, down his chest, to the hem of the royal blue long-sleeved T-shirt he wore. She shivered in ecstasy as, for the first time, she ran her hands up the bare skin of the hard, corrugated plane of his abdomen, to the swell of his chest. Suddenly, she wanted desperately to get rid of the fucking shirt that was keeping her from seeing his naked torso and arms. She was probably rough as she grabbed handfuls of it with a growl, practically tearing it up his body. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he pulled it off himself, in one jerky movement, and pulled her immediately back to him. 

Now it was her blouse she was grabbing at, yanking it from her like it was on fire. Once she was free of it, she was finally less frantic, able to feel his skin against hers, to touch him wherever she chose, and slide her mouth down his neck, across his chest, to his arms. They continued to grind their bodies together as she slowly, worshipfully, ran her hands and her mouth over all of his flesh she could reach. When she felt him unhook her bra, she tore it off, gasping with the feeling of her bare breasts against his heated skin. 

He tried to follow her with his hips as she lifted up to slide her body lower, reaching more of him with her hands and mouth, kissing, licking, and simply rubbing her lips across his stomach. She kept her weight on one elbow, slipping her hand underneath him to cup his ass – did asses _get_ that hard? - as she caressed his thigh with her other hand. That kept her occupied for a long while, and his gasping breaths and occasional groans and hisses of her name made her explorations at least as pleasurable for her as his rutting hips told her they were for him. 

He actually cried out when she moved lower, mouthing him through his pleated twill pants, groaning herself as she realized that in her deepest fantasies, she’d actually _under_ estimated his size. _Bless you, Abraham Erskine, wherever you are_ , she thought. She could feel Steve becoming needy – trying not to thrust up into her, but wanting desperately to do exactly that – and allowed herself an evil giggle against him. 

“Sharon, _please_ …”

She gave a low chuckle. “You’re not giving the orders here, Captain,” she growled, but reached for his belt buckle anyway. She continued kissing him randomly, stroking and gripping his thigh, reveling in his hard strength, as she unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants. Then she leaned up onto both elbows, watching his face as she unzipped him. He was flushed, with a gorgeous sheen of sweat making his magnificent body glisten in the late-morning light flooding the room. His eyes were shut tight, his lips parted as he panted. 

“Is this OK?” She asked lasciviously.

“Yes! Fuck, yes!”

Giggling again, she slid a knee under her so she could put her weight on it to lift up and pull his pants and boxer briefs down his thighs. She’d known, roughly, what his cock would be like from sliding her mouth up and down it through his pants. But somehow she wasn’t prepared for the full sight. He opened his eyes and looked at her, the sudden concern in his face turning to a smile when he understood what her gasp had been about. 

“I… Steve, you’re… _Oh_ , you’re so beautiful…” She couldn’t wait long enough to say more than that before getting her mouth on his perfect cock. 

She had no idea how long she spent, kneeling between his spread thighs, never having bothered to do more than move his pants out of her way, sliding her tongue slowly up his shaft to flick across his head, tasting him and moaning in pleasure. He rotated his hips, trying not to thrust but unable to keep still. Sharon smiled with satisfaction, hearing the sounds he was entirely unable to control. She moved lower, tonguing his balls, using her hand to lift them to mouth them gently, humming with happiness as he gasped her name. 

He smelled wonderful: masculine, salty and musky and tangy. She’d wondered how he would smell, how he would taste, and took her time discovering him as he became more and more aroused. She knew he was having an extremely hard time not taking control, his hands clenching and unclenching, the muscles of his abdomen and thighs hard with the tension of keeping himself in check. She wanted to remember the ecstatic, tortured look on his face forever. 

After she’d satisfied herself – for the moment – with her explorations, she shifted up slightly, just enough to lick the pre-come from his shaft until she reached the head of his cock and took it between her lips. She grasped his cock lightly in her hand.

“Steve,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes, looking down his flushed, sweaty chest to look at her, breathing almost too hard to grunt in answer.

“Will you let me make you come? Please? I want to make you feel good.”

“I… Uh…. Uh-huh…” he managed, nodding stupidly. 

Laughing softly, she took him back into her mouth, and spent the next few minutes working her way to taking as much of him as she could. Even when she finally managed to deep-throat him as far as she could, he was still too big for her to take all of him. She gripped him firmly with her hand and turned her attention to the slight undulations of his pelvis to help her establish the rhythm he needed. He smoothed a hand over her hair and combed his fingers through it, but didn’t grasp or try to control her movements, although the tension in his arm told her he wanted to. Later. Right now, she wanted him to simply relax, and let her give him this. 

He was close. She could hear it in his gasps and feel it in the stiffness of his thighs under her. When he cried out her name, loudly, and began a string of curses and exclamations, she stayed where she was, changing nothing about her rhythm or pressure, or what she was doing with her tongue. She gloried in her success, at how undone he was. She knew he couldn’t hear himself, wasn’t paying the slightest attention, was absolutely beyond thinking about anything other than her mouth on his cock, and his impending climax. Exactly, precisely, where she’d been dying to take him. 

He went stiff and still, not speaking or even breathing, for a few beats before, with a mighty shout, he exploded into her mouth, shooting jet after jet of hot come down her throat. She eased the pressure of her mouth and hand, but didn’t stop sucking and stroking him until he actually pushed a little at her, letting her know he was finished, and becoming oversensitive.

Sharon felt like an obscene goddess, or a succubus, insanely proud of herself in this moment, as she caught her breath, watching Steve Rogers come down from what she could tell had been a phenomenal orgasm. Her smile was probably an offensively self-satisfied smirk, but she didn’t give a shit, because Steve’s eyes were closed, he was still stroking her hair and smiling to himself, and he was more relaxed than she’d ever seen him in the entire time she’d known him. _Mission a-fucking-complished._

His eyes fluttered open and he pulled her up to lie half on his chest, in the crook of his arm.

“That was… Well, that was fucking incredible, is what that was,” he gave an awed chuckle, kissing her. “ _Damn_. The CIA train you in that stuff?”

“I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

“Well. When I come back to earth, I’m gonna take you to bed and return the favor. Maybe several times. I’m a supersoldier, y’know. Got a lot of stamina.”

She kissed him back messily. “Yeah. I’m counting on it.”

*****

President Lattimore was cross and whiny from the time the helicopter set down and he saw the Quinjet. Seeing Air Force One again, he’d been reminded of what it had been like to have a plane like that at his disposal, and from there, reminded himself of all the other perks of power. He’d always liked being President. Liked it much better than he’d liked actually running the country. So he hadn’t done much of that. He let others do it for him. Now, though, he saw the small, boxy, utilitarian jet that was going to take _him_ home, and resented it. 

Bucky was irritated. The man was a spoiled toddler, creating as much unpleasantness as he could to make himself feel important and, in the process, forcing a team of trained bodyguards, all with military backgrounds, to pay less than ideal attention to their jobs, in order to cater to his tantrum. He complained about having to wait in the helicopter while three of his detail swept the Quinjet for dangers. He insisted that Joss be the one who waited with him, which Bucky could have told him was a mistake. Bucky’s sharp, perceptive eyes had identified quickly enough that Craig Thomas and Joss Emerson were head and shoulders above the rest of the Secret Service agents he’d met. Since Thomas had gone back to D.C. with President Burke, that meant Lattimore was trusting his safety to what was very much the B-team. 

Once the team was satisfied, they allowed Lattimore and Joss to board the Quinjet while Bucky did his pre-flight check of the exterior. When he boarded, he saw that Joss had Lattimore seated and was cooing a bunch of bullshit to him about how cool it was to be flown anywhere in a Quinjet, let alone with the Winter Soldier in the cockpit. Lattimore was a little mollified, and Bucky tried to help Joss out by making his metal arm as obvious as possible and doing a rip-off of Steve’s big-chested hero routine, the one he put on when he wanted something from someone gullible. Lattimore calmed down just enough that Bucky decided to let him make the trip on the inside of the jet. _Man, this dude was a tool_. Bucky was tempted to put a parachute on him and just toss him out over the Gulf of Mexico, let him swim back to Mobile. But he was pretty sure Joss wouldn’t let him.

Bucky was glad when the noise of the engines blocked out the drone of Lattimore’s complaints. It would’ve been fun to have Joss as his co-pilot, but fucking Voldemort wasn’t having it, so Jeff Traynor - one of the Secret Service guys - was in the right seat. Bucky absolutely couldn’t understand how Joss put up with this Lattimore douche for four years. He very much understood why she kept politely but firmly refusing his constant requests that she join his Secret Service detail. 

Eventually, Lattimore fell asleep, which allowed Joss to move up to the cockpit. She wished she could have been Bucky’s copilot – that would have been something to remember when this was all over and he returned to being just a guy on the news and YouTube – but she could still spend some time watching him fly. She’d been looking forward to it.

“Everything OK back there?” Bucky asked, looking up with a smile that made Joss tremble.

“He’s asleep.”

“What’d you do, sing a lullaby?”

Joss grinned. “Whatever works.”

“Listen, not that I don’t want you up here, but you should strap in,” Bucky said, indicating the radar screen. “We’re coming up on some weather.”

“I can take a little turbulence,” she shrugged. “I’m Air Force.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bucky grinned evilly, and she knew she was not going to like whatever he said next. “The Air Force. That’s like the military, but with naptime, right?”

“Wait, what?” She shrieked in mock dismay. “You did not just make a joke about the Air Force. It didn’t even _exist_ when you served.”

“Yep. Way I heard it, we won the war just fine without it.”

“Oh, man. Maybe I will strap in, after all, just in case you take that whole ‘ground pounder’ thing seriously.”

“Was that supposed to be an insult? You can do better than that. Try again.”

“Nah,” Joss said, patting him on the shoulder. “You must feel bad enough as it is. I mean, you’re already Army.”

Joss could actually _feel_ Bucky’s smile. She was glad for the engine noise to cover her little involuntary whimper. She went back to her seat, storing up the sound of his deep chuckle to play in her memory once she returned home. She sat on the starboard side of the plane, so she could watch him at the controls, trying to memorize all of the details of his profile and the way he handled the jet with such confidence and grace.

*****

By the late afternoon, Bruce had finished running Tony and Catherine through the last of the data he’d collected in D.C., and Catherine was working her way through everything they had on the other phenomena. Bruce and Tony were muttering together before a series of screens, trying to put some theories together. 

“Wait, wait, wait…” Catherine cried, surprising Tony and Bruce, who turned to her.

“What?” They said in unison.

“This is the most cocked-up hurricane I’ve ever seen. It’s all wrong. First and most obvious, hurricane can’t spin clockwise in the Phillipine Sea. This one did. It _can’t_ have, but it did. And it’s not shaped right. It’s way too small, and… It didn’t hit land, which would explain why it wasn’t news, but why didn’t the Institute hear about this? This is… This _can’t happen_.”

At that moment, Friday interrupted. “Excuse me, Sir, Doctors.”

“What is it, Friday?” Tony asked.

“Director Coulson is calling. It seems another energy spike has been detected in the United States.”

“Where?”

“Atlanta, Georgia.”

“And? Any phenomena?”

“Yes, Boss. A rather unusually violent thunderstorm. I’ll connect Director Coulson.”

“Stark?” S.H.I.E.L.D. director Phil Coulson’s voice came over the speakers. 

“Coulson, you got a hit?”

“We do. I’ve got agents on the way, and I’ve notified the White House.”

“You need us there?”

“Not yet, but stand by. We might need you, depending on what we find. I’m already sending you the data we have so far.”

“So tell me about this storm,” Bruce said. 

“It’s a nightmare. Came up out of basically nowhere, a few storm systems just suddenly decided to collide, and now we’re getting reports of lightning storms and hurricane-force wind gusts.”

“Wait, Atlanta?” Tony suddenly stiffened and turned around, stepping to an adjacent work table and waving another screen into brilliance. He navigated it with a few quick flicks of his hand, and a map of the U.S. appeared, with a blinking green blip near the Southeastern corner. “ _Shit_!”

“What’s the matter,” Catherine asked, keying in to Tony’s sudden deep concern.

“That’s the Quinjet. That’s Barnes’s plane. And they’re basically right over Atlanta.”

“He knows to fly around a storm,” Bruce said, trying to sound confident.

“Stark,” Director Coulson said, “Are you looking at a readout tracking Barnes’s plane? Superimpose it over the data I just sent. Let’s see where they are in relation to the storm. Like I said, these systems collided out of nowhere.”

Tony did some more flicking and waving of his hands, then an irregular, red blot appeared on the map, with the blinking green dot well within its borders.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Tony hissed.

*****

President Lattimore awoke with a start when the Quinjet seemed to drop precipitously, followed by a jarring thud. He would have been awakened a second later, anyway, by Bucky’s very creative, very loud string of curses. 

“You all strapped in back there?” Bucky called.

Two of the Secret Service agents hadn’t been, and one of them was now rushing to hook his seat harness while the other one was getting up from his knees, holding his forehead where blood was already seeping around his fingers.

“Eric, shit!” Joss yelled, looking frantically around her seat for something to use on the wound. No one could get up for the first aid kit right now, with the Quinjet suddenly buffeted by severe turbulence that rattled Joss’s teeth together. She finally pulled the scarf from around her neck and reached it over to him as he finished fastening his harness. “Use that.”

She watched as he blotted at his forehead. They hit another, worse patch and the jet was thrown sideways and tilted to the left, knocking the air out of Joss’s lungs. Because she was thrown against her seat harness and her head whipped to the side, she was looking out the window when a blinding, jagged streak of lightning ripped through the cloud enveloping them. She was shocked. One minute, they’d been in a white cloudbank, a little bumpy but not enough to even warrant a harness. Now, suddenly, the world had gone dark, and they were in the midst of a roiling mass of stormcloud tossing them around and riddled with nearly-constant lightning. She’d flown in plenty of storms, but nothing like this.

In fact, she’d never seen a storm like this. The darkness had seemed to slam down like a curtain, and the clouds were producing more lightning than she’d ever seen. It felt unnatural. It felt malevolent. 

Over the sound of the engine and the banging of the almost ceaseless turbulence, she could hear Bucky shouting into his radio headset. It was impossible to hear every word, but she could hear frequent cries of, “Say again?” and “Repeat that last!” 

She clutched the arms of her seat, looking out at the swirling clouds, lit by the incessant lightning, being careful to keep her tongue away from her teeth to avoid biting it as her jaws were slammed together by the buffeting. One of the other agents had already done that, and was now stuffing his tie into his mouth to absorb the blood and keep it from happening again. 

Normally, Joss would have enjoyed the ride. She knew aircraft, and had been through her share of sporty flights. But this… this was frightening. Lightning striking an aircraft was normally no threat. Aircraft were designed to be struck by lightning, because it happened all the time. This storm, though, was testing her faith in that knowledge. She’d never even imagined a storm like this. She hoped the design engineers had. 

Turbulence, while unpleasant, was normally not a problem, either. Planes were designed to withstand turbulence, of course, which was a routine occurrence. This, though… She’d never been in turbulence this severe. Not even close. President Lattimore was already sporting what would become a fairly bad bruise where a book he’d had on his lap had hit his cheek. Fortunately, there wasn’t much else sitting loose in the cabin, because anything that wasn’t anchored became a missile with some of the hits they were taking.

Joss watched as Bucky and Jeff Traynor fought the storm. She could see and feel that they had far less control of the aircraft than they should have, even in a turbulent storm. She could see them shouting to each other, but the roar of the stressed engines and the constant barrage of turbulence made it impossible to hear what they were saying. 

She didn’t need to hear them to know when the airframe experienced a catastrophic failure. The most violent upheaval she’d ever felt knocked her head against the window, stunning her briefly. She shook her head, trying to reorient herself before realizing that it wasn’t the blow to her skull that was causing her sense of disequilibrium. Things seemed crooked because they _were_ crooked. That last jolt had damaged something that was making it almost impossible for Bucky and Jeff to control the Quinjet. 

They fought it. They worked together, Bucky screaming instructions as they did everything they could to keep the jet in the air. When it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, Joss closed her eyes and tried to remember how to pray.


	5. Nobody Likes A Crybaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neither Tony nor Bruce want to tell Steve Bucky was in a plane crash, but Steve's kinda busy right now, anyway. Even when Bucky's arm's not working right, it's still badass. Everybody gets an assigment, but Sam isn't happy with his. Until...

When the blinking green dot representing Bucky’s Quinjet disappeared from the map, there was nothing but silence in the workroom. Tony still held his phone in his hand, mouth open as though he was going to try to repeat the heading Barnes hadn’t heard. His shock-numb brain could only think that there wasn’t a bunch of static on the phone after the plane disappeared from the screen, like in the movies. Instead, there was just… nothing. 

On the other side of the screen, he could see Bruce’s face. He looked like he’d been struck stupid, just as Tony surely did. He looked over at Dr. Mulready and, when she looked as stunned as Bruce did, felt a momentary flash of irritation, as though her failure to plan for this situation was a personal affront. For the first time in Tony Stark’s memory, he had absolutely no idea what to say or do. All three of the supposed geniuses in the room simply stood, silent and helpless. 

Fortunately, they were still on the line with Director Coulson, who had no such problem. Coulson assured those in the room that S.H.I.E.L.D. was already in communication with all the local agencies, as well as the feds, both locally and in Washington. With President Lattimore on board, there would be an insane amount of help on the site of the Quinjet crash in a matter of minutes. He reminded them that the plane wasn’t in some remote location. It was on the outskirts of Atlanta. Coulson excused himself to start lighting fires under people. 

When he heard the click of Coulson disconnecting, Tony’s mind suddenly, sickeningly realized what this meant. He closed his eyes, spitting a quiet, “ _Fuck_!”

“What?” Bruce asked weakly.

“Rogers.” Their eyes met in immediate understanding.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bruce echoed, whispering. 

*****

Steve was in no way ready to hear Friday’s voice telling him he was needed for an emergency meeting. For one thing, he was in the shower. For another, he was in the shower with one hand under each of Sharon Carter’s thighs, holding her against the textured granite tile wall with her legs wrapped around his waist and her head thrown back. She was moments from climax. It occurred to Steve, in his endorphin-addled haze, that he’d watched Sharon have enough orgasms in the last four hours that he was actually starting to know the signs.

“Excuse me, Captain Rogers, Agent Carter, but there’s an emergency.”

Although Sharon raised her head, Steve didn’t stop lifting and lowering her on his cock, and by the third stroke she was back to her regularly scheduled program. 

“Is the world gonna end if you wait another sixty seconds to tell us what it is?”

There was a short lull while Friday apparently computed that, before his voice came back. “No, Sir.”

“Then leave us alone until I call you.”

“Yes, Sir.”

*****

Everyone in the room was too distressed to notice that Steve and Sharon both had wet hair as they entered the conference room together at a run. Sam and Clint were standing next to the big, oval table, arms folded as if trying to hold in their emotions, while Tony and Bruce sat at one end, looking grim. Natasha stood next to them with a hand on Tony’s shoulder in an uncharacteristic show of empathy. Although neither Anita Herrera nor Catherine Mulready were part of this group, the feeling of dread and anguish in the room was palpable even to them.

“What’s going on?” Steve demanded. “Friday wouldn’t tell us.”

No one noticed the “us.”

“Sit down, Rogers,” Natasha said. 

Steve sat. Had anyone else in the room said that, he would have balked. But Natasha Romanoff was not a woman to waste time on convention. She wasn’t soft, or coddling. Not to anyone. Steve knew immediately that, whatever had happened, it was bad. Natasha sat down across the table from him, putting her hands flat on the table, for the first time ever seeming to have trouble meeting his eyes. Her voice was smooth and low, with a note in it that made Steve, irrationally, want to strike out at her and beat her to death before she could say whatever it was. “There was another energy spike. It was followed by a storm. A violent electrical storm with winds in excess of two hundred miles an hour.”

Steve nodded. “All right. Where? Who’s on site?”

“There’s more, Steve,” she said, taking a breath to let him prepare himself. He actually stiffened in preparation to get up and lunge at her. “The storm was over Atlanta. And, at the time, so was Barnes’s Quinjet, with President Lattimore on board.”

Steve’s face went hard even as all color drained from it. “Tell me.”

“We were in communication with them. Stark was on the line with Coulson about the energy spike and the storm, and when he realized where Barnes was, he called to warn him. But the storm came out of nowhere, basically formed around them. Things got bad fast. Stark and Coulson tried to help, but… Barnes was looking for a place to put it down when we lost comms and tracking.” 

Everyone in the room watched Steve begin to absorb this news. After everything he and Bucky had been through, after everything he’d done to rescue Bucky, and everything Bucky had done to reclaim his mind and his life… All he said was, “How long ago?”

“About ten minutes. We know pretty well where they are, and there’s an armada of help on the way. They’re northwest of Atlanta; they were looking for somewhere clear, somewhere away from people…”

Steve nodded, acknowledging what she didn’t say. He was looking for open land so that, when they crashed, no one else would die. Just those on the Quinjet. 

Just Bucky. 

The only reason Steve didn’t heave his guts out at that moment was that he was simply incapable of moving. Sharon sat down next to him, close, but not touching him. He was glad. If she touched him, he knew that he would shatter into a million pieces. 

“We don’t know anything yet,” Natasha went on in that low, calm voice. “They still had a minimum of control, enough to have a little bit of a choice about where they landed. And Barnes… with his enhancements, even if it’s bad, he could have survived.”

Steve swallowed. “Get me there.”

“Already underway, Cap,” Tony said quietly. “Chopper will be here in twenty. Jet’s being fueled as we speak.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“I’m coming with you,” Sharon told him. 

“So am I,” Tony added.

Steve just nodded, his jaw clenched and his eyes carefully avoiding everyone else’s. Of all the things he could be feeling right now, he didn’t understand why the emotion threatening to overwhelm him at this moment was sheer, piercing rage.

*****

Being a supersoldier means that a lot of things that would fuck up a normal guy don’t do that much to you. But falling out of the sky strapped to nine tons of disintegrating Quinjet, that’s gonna leave a mark on anyone. Bucky groaned loudly, swore profusely in Russian, and tried to figure out which way was up. Eventually, he gave up trying to use his senses and just did what he’d been trained to do. He spit. He swore again when the spit landed in his hair. OK. Upside-down then. 

There was light coming through a crack in the other side of the fuselage, softly illuminating Jeff Traynor’s obviously-dead body. Bucky tried to be respectful and gentle as he unhooked Jeff’s harness and lifted him down to rest on the crushed ceiling of what had been the cockpit, needing to get by him. Something was very wrong with Bucky’s metal arm. It wasn’t at full power and it made a sound like a dying wildebeest when he moved it certain ways, but at least it still worked. For now. Which was a good thing, because he was going to have to bust his way out of here, peeling the metal back from that crack until it was wide enough to get through.

He knew he wasn’t the only survivor. He could hear moans coming from where the rear of the plane should be. He had to get to whoever was still alive. Seeing what had happened to Jeff, though, he prepared himself for some more grisly discoveries. But Bucky had been on battlefields. He wearily acknowledged that there wasn’t much that could sicken him anymore.

After what felt like an hour, but was probably closer to fifteen minutes, of punching and bending and tearing at the metal on the sides of the crack in the fuselage, Bucky had separated the sides enough to slither out. Before he did, he took a moment to assess his own condition. He was hurt. He thought he’d been unconscious for a while, and the pain in his head told him why. But when he ran his hands through his hair, he only came up with a moderate amount of blood, so he called it good and took inventory of his limbs. There was a fairly significant laceration across one upper arm, and an obviously-broken finger on his right hand, along with what he expected was some very impressive bruising to both legs that would have been shattered bones on a normal man. A few broken ribs, but what else was new? They weren’t displaced, so they’d heal, same as always. He wasn’t sure about his left ankle. Could be broken, probably just badly sprained. It hurt like a bitch, but he could walk on it. Kind of. 

He made his way across the rough ground, plowed up by the nose of the Quinjet. He’d tried to slide it in on its belly, but obviously that hadn’t gone so well. The angle of the wreckage told Bucky why he was alive and Jeff Traynor wasn’t. The right wing had dug into the ground, breaking off but leaving enough of a stub to pull the body of the jet toward and onto that side. The smell of jet fuel was strong, but the ground was wet and there was a massive black scar in the turf where it had clearly burned away, and the heavy rain was keeping most of the small fires he could see under control. Still, he worried.

The tail of the Quinjet was several hundred feet away, which turned out to be a good thing, because the hole where it had been gave him a way into the cabin, if he could clear some of the debris out of the way. 

He peered in, between jagged metal and broken struts and a twisted fringe of wiring. 

“I’m comin’, I’ll get to you in a minute,” he grunted to whoever was moaning as he pulled at the wreckage. He needed to make the gaping hole big enough to slide through without slicing off a limb on jagged aluminum. “Call out, will ya’? Who’s with me?”

There was at least one man alive in there. Bucky noted with a jolt of fear that he didn’t hear Joss. His stomach heaved at the thought that he might be about to discover her dead body.

It took another ten minutes to tear his way into the cabin and, when he did, he saw that at least one of the Secret Service agents was dead. He was hanging from his seat, blood still running so freely from a jagged wound in his chest that Bucky could actually hear the drops splashing softly. The other one, the one who’d bitten his tongue, was the man Bucky had been hearing moan since he came to in the cockpit. _Singer_ , Bucky remembered. Singer had a badly broken arm and a hideous head wound, but Bucky couldn’t see his legs for the debris on top of them. He was conscious, though, and made sense when Bucky talked to him. 

“Hang on, pal, I’ll be back in just a second. I just gotta check on everyone else. You’ll be OK. They know we’re here. Cavalry’s comin’, I promise.”

Bucky ignored the man’s pleas not to leave him and moved forward. President Lattimore, who had been sitting forward of the dead agent, was hanging from his seat, which was now on the side of the plane. Bucky could see that his color was terrible, and most of his formerly-white dress shirt was soaked in blood. He was unconscious, but alive. 

Bucky was as gentle as he could be as he unharnessed the man and carried him back through the hole in the fuselage. He laid him on the ground under what remained of the left wing, where he would at least be out of the rain. He was still too close to the wreckage, but Bucky needed to get back inside. 

He needed to find Joss.

Moving as quickly as safety allowed, avoiding serrated edges of torn metal and the pool of blood still dripping from the dead man, Bucky looked everywhere. He called her name. He pulled up the broken seats and moved the shattered remains of work stations, looking underneath. _Joss wasn’t there_.

Where the hell was she? He tried to think about where she’d been sitting. On the right side of the plane, he was sure of it. Across from the dead agent still harnessed in his seat, whose blood was dripping more slowly, Bucky guessed because most of it was now on the downhill side of the plane. 

“Joss!” He shouted, becoming frantic. “Damn it, Joss, where the fuck are you?”

The agent who remained alive mumbled something. At first, Bucky thought it was just another moan, but when he went over to him, Bucky could hear that there were words in whatever he was trying to say. 

“Unrrr arrrr.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

The man pointed with a bloody wrist that, now that Bucky noticed it, had a bone sticking through the flesh. Bucky followed where he was indicating and noticed that the fuselage was broken open, low down, at that point. There was nothing but broken earth where the triangular separation in the bulkhead was, which is why Bucky hadn’t noticed light coming through. It was actually a sizeable crack, now that he really looked at it, and in one edge of the hole was a hand. A woman’s hand. And it was moving.

Bucky ripped a hole in his shirt – and consequently his arm – getting back out of the fuselage to rush to the side of the Quinjet where the rupture was. Approaching it, he saw Joss, covered in wet mud that made her look like a part of the ground torn up by the crash. She was conscious and moving, but a large section of the plane was lying across her lower body.

Bucky slid to his knees next to her. “Joss – thank God! I thought…”

His voice broke, and he found he was perilously close to tears. The wave of relief at seeing her alive hit him harder than anything about the crash had so far. Seeing how stricken he was, she put a hand on his now mud-covered thigh and actually tried to smile. Inconceivable as it seemed in the circumstances, he realized she was actually trying to comfort _him_.

“So that’s how you land a plane in the Army, huh?” She croaked, wincing. “No wonder you guys like to jump out first.”

Bucky barked a relieved laugh. “Hey, any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”

“That is a _low fucking bar_ , Barnes!” She tried to laugh, but instantly appeared to regret it, as she put a hand to where the fuselage rested on what he guessed were her lower ribs.

“How bad are you hurt?” He asked, using the hem of his shirt to wipe mud from near her left eye.

“I’m, um… I don’t think it’s bad. I can feel everything. This ground is really soft. Feels like mud. But I can’t get out from under here. I’ve been trying.” 

Bucky began to look around, assessing how best to free her. In the end, he decided he didn’t have much choice. “I’m going to see if I can budge this piece, you try to crawl out. Can you do that?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

He reached inside the crack and grabbed the edge of a strut with his metal hand, bracing his legs and lifting with everything he had. His arm whined and rumbled, but it held. Groaning with effort, red-faced and grimacing, Bucky managed to budge the wreckage, but only slightly. He stayed where he was, keeping it from settling back. After a few breaths, he bent his legs again and, teeth bared, eyes squinted almost shut, grunted loudly as he forced the wreckage to move a bit more. With a wet squelch and a harsh, pained cry, Joss pushed herself backward with her elbows, sliding her back through the mud until she was free from under the edge of the fuselage.

“Holy _shit_!” She wheezed, holding onto her left side and still lying on the wet ground, eyes shut and wincing.

Bucky turned quickly, panicking, and dropped to his knees next to her. “Joss! What?”

She let out something between a laugh and a weak cough. “Did you just lift a plane off of me?”

Bucky heaved a sigh of relief and actually managed a grin. “Well, not a _whole_ plane.”

He leaned over her and took her hand, moving it gently away from her side. He lifted the hem of the thin sweater she wore and saw that her entire left flank was already dark with bruising, with a bleeding gash near the center. He put his right hand flat against her ribs, trying not to hurt her as he palpated for breaks. 

“Ribs feel like they’re where they’re supposed to be, but that doesn’t mean they’re not cracked all to hell. How bad does it hurt?”

She lifted up onto an elbow. “Doesn’t matter. I’m OK. How’s everyone else?”

Bucky, still holding her hand, put an arm behind her back to help her to a sitting position. “Maybe you should just stay here, or I could carry you over where Lattimore is…”

“I can walk,” she grunted. “Just help me up.”

He did, and she took a few steps. He noticed she continued holding her left side, and something about the way her right wrist hung was wrong.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m good to go. But you’re limping.”

“Ankle. It’s nothing.”

Joss moved to Bucky’s other side, the side with the sprained ankle. She put her arm around his waist, nudging his arm across her shoulders. “Here. Lean on me. Man, we’re a pair, huh?” 

They both grinned as they stumbled back toward the stub of the fuselage, then around to the side where President Lattimore was lying under the remains of the wing, just as Bucky had left him. 

“You stay here with him,” Bucky said. “I’ll go get the other guy.”

Joss’s head snapped toward him. “Guy? Only one?”

“Yeah,” he answered solemnly, helping Joss to lower down to the ground next to Lattimore. “I’m sorry. Singer, he’s alive. The other two…”

Joss nodded, closing her eyes. She turned toward President Lattimore, and Bucky felt something shift inside him when he saw her straighten her shoulders a bit as she leaned down to check on him. He recognized toughness and bravery. Hurt, drenched, and covered in mud, she was just going to get on with the job. Time for feelings later. Bucky gave himself the briefest of seconds to be grateful that she had survived and seemed to be relatively unhurt. He really liked this girl.

It took him a long time to free Agent Singer’s legs from underneath the twisted metal of what had been a seat, held down over them by a deeply-bent strut that Bucky couldn’t unbend. He ended up having to tear the chair apart, piece by piece, and with every effort, his arm increased in noise and decreased in power. When he was finally able to pull the man’s legs free, he saw that one of them was crushed and appeared not to be bleeding from a deep gouge in his calf. The flesh around it looked white and felt cold. Bucky felt a roll of nausea, but kept it to himself. The man was going to lose that leg.

By the time he had pulled Singer free of the wreckage and drug him to the poor shelter of the wing, Bucky’s left arm was no longer working at all, and two helicopters were landing nearby. He didn’t pay much attention to either of those things, because Joss was kneeling, holding one of Lattimore’s hands in both of hers, her forehead resting on their hands where they lay on his chest. She was shaking, and he could tell she was crying softly. 

“I’m sorry, Sir,” she whispered brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”

It was clear that Lattimore was dead. 

Bucky dropped to his knees next to her and put his hand on her back. “Wasn’t your fault.”

“I let him die, Bucky. He died on my watch…”

“Nothing you could’ve done. C’mere…” Bucky moved his hand to her side and pulled her up to lean against him, and was gratified that she turned her face into his chest and let him hold her there, murmuring into her wet, muddy hair. She put her arms weakly around him and they simply knelt there, waiting, while the sound of sirens became dimly audible in the distance.

They did what they could to help the helicopter crews load Singer onto a backboard and, from there, onto a gurney. Singer was a big guy; it took all of them to haul the gurney across the broken, muddy ground. Once he was inside, Bucky and one of the paramedics tried to get Joss to go with them to the hospital. She wouldn’t hear of it.

“No! I have to stay with the President! I have to go with him.”

She simply walked around them, back across the ground to the wreckage where two more paramedics had put Lattimore into a body bag, and were about to zip it.

“Don’t do that! That’s the _President_ , you assholes! Treat him with some dignity.” 

They looked at each other and must have decided not to challenge the filthy, sodden woman holding her left arm to her side and with an obviously broken right wrist, bleeding from several places through her torn clothes. They simply slid the open bag onto a backboard and waited as Bucky and the other paramedic jogged over to help lift the body onto the gurney. Once they had dragged and bumped the gurney over the ground to the second helicopter, Bucky pulled Joss aside.

“You’re going to the hospital,” he growled. 

“I will, but… I’m… only one left…” A confused look slowly began to cross her face. “Bucky…?”

Bucky watched all the color and life drain out of Joss as her eyes went vacant and she simply melted to the ground. With only one arm, the best he could do was catch her head so it didn’t slam into the muddy soil, which hurt like a mother with his broken finger. The paramedics came running back and began to tend to her as the first ground vehicles began to be seen making their way toward the crash site across the rough, soggy ground.

*****

The team used the twenty minutes before the helicopter arrived to make rough plans. Everyone agreed that someone needed to get into Jarman Arias’s underground facility and see what was going on down there. If it was a blind alley, they needed to know that, and maybe it would help shed light on whatever the hell was going on. They sure as shit needed some answers. It didn’t take long to agree that Natasha and Clint were the best choice for that mission. Sam half expected Anita to object, but she was a professional and a realist. She knew that Clint and Natasha were much more experienced spies. It was the right decision. 

Bruce and Catherine would stay at the tower and continue to work on learning what they could from the data on the phenomena. 

Sam was furious at being assigned to basically stay home and mind the store. He did what Steve ordered, but he made sure everyone in the room knew how he felt about it. He and Anita would do research into Arias, and into anyone who had any connection to attempts to control the weather, to see what that would yield. 

Controlling the weather wasn’t a new idea. In fact, cloud seeding to produce rain was carried out in many countries, including the U.S. But it was a huge leap from that to being able to create destructive storms like tornadoes and hurricanes, and there had also been an earthquake and a wildfire. It was a long shot, but as pissed as Sam was at being stuck with the grunt work, he wasn’t about to say no. Especially when Steve looked like he was just looking for an excuse to rip someone in two.

Everyone kept things as businesslike as possible. Although none of them had ever seen him with such a fragile hold on himself, Steve was following his usual practice of focusing on planning and action, rather than his fears. They wanted to help. Besides which, nobody particularly wanted to find themselves with his fist down their throat for saying the wrong thing.

By the time Friday announced that the helicopter was landing, everyone had their orders.

*****

Tony’s phone rang just as they were entering the jet. Steve, unbearably tense, felt the strident tone of the ring jangling through every nerve in his body. He wanted to tear it from Tony’s hand and smash it. He stopped moving blindly through the plane, hungry eyes on Tony, trying to will information out of him. 

Until he watched Tony close his eyes and choke back a sob. 

Steve’s legs gave out from under him and he fell bonelessly onto the plush, soft leather of the nearest seat as, wordlessly, Tony handed him the phone. When he took it and put it to his ear, Steve found that he couldn’t form words. All he could do was muttered an inarticulate “Uh,” paralyzed as he was between needing desperately to know what the person on the phone had to say, and wanting just as desperately not to.

“Hey, pal,” Bucky’s tired voice came to Steve’s ear. “You there?”

Steve made another grunt. It was all he could do. His hand flew to his eyes as he dissolved in tears.

“C’mon, Stevie,” Bucky said gently. “You’re all right. I’m OK. Just breathe for me, huh?”

It was a long time before Steve could do that, let alone speak. Hundreds of miles away, from a couple of choked noises, Bucky had known exactly what Steve was feeling. Of course he had. And Steve had almost lost that. Again.

“You fucker,” Steve finally managed to utter, in a strangled moan. “I’m gonna fucking kill you when I get there.”

Bucky chuckled. “Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t be too happy with me right about now. That’s why I called. I can’t talk, gotta take care of some things, but I knew you’d worry. You’re comin’ here?”

“To kill you, you asshole,” Steve sobbed. 

“Yeah, all right. I’ll look forward to that. When you gonna get here?”

“I don’t… Hell, I don’t know,” Steve shook his head, wiping his eyes and nose with a handful of tissues Sharon handed to him. “Damn it, Buck! You scared the shit outta me!”

“Well, I didn’t do it on purpose! Cut me some slack here. Just give the phone to Tony, or someone who can make sense right now, OK? I’ll see you when you get here.”

For a moment, Steve just sat, holding the phone and listening to Bucky breathe. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to let it go.

“Steve,” Bucky murmured soothingly, the way he used to when Steve was panicking during an asthma attack. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine, all right, pal? Just give Tony the phone and pull yourself together. Fuck’s sake, Rogers, nobody likes a crybaby.” 

Steve gave a wet, snotty laugh at that, and handed the phone to Tony, who took it and immediately began cursing Bucky in rapid-fire Stark vernacular for wrecking the Quinjet and interrupting his research and for making him have to be in the room when Steve learned he’d been in a plane crash. Steve grinned a little at Tony’s version of caring, but paid little attention. He slumped in his seat, staring blindly ahead and breathing in deep, hungry gasps that caught and stuttered every once in a while. Sharon simply knelt beside him, comforting him with her presence but saying nothing and not touching him.

He took her hand and slowly turned his head to look at her. “Bucky’s OK,” he whispered.

“So I heard.”

Steve moved in slow motion as he stood to slide into the inside seat so Sharon could sit next to him. For much of the flight to Atlanta, he was silent. Sharon didn’t say anything to him or anyone else about how hard he shook for the first hour, or the fact that he was still trembling when they landed.

*****

The call came in the late afternoon. Anita usually didn’t answer calls from numbers she didn’t recognize, instead letting whoever it was leave a message if they were going to, so she could decide whether to call them back. But for some reason, she picked up when Jarman Arias called.

She slapped her fingers lightly on the table to get Sam’s attention where he sat next to her at the table in the common room, staring into his laptop. He looked up at her signal, and she mouthed, “Arias.”

She didn’t put the phone on speaker, but it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway, since they were speaking Spanish. Sam knew just enough Spanish, and heard his own name just enough, to be manic with curiosity, making faces, whisper-screaming questions at her, and generally making an ass of himself while she spoke calmly and, if his instincts were correct, flirtatiously. It felt like hours before she hung up.

“ _What_? What the hell was that?” Sam shrieked.

Anita smirked and shrugged with false nonchalance. “We’re invited to a party. Arias has a villa in the Keys, and we’re invited to a party.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Also, you’re my boyfriend but we’re very… flexible.”

Sam just blinked at her while she smiled.

“He said he’s been thinking about me, and he wants to see me again. I told him I’m with you. He got a little pissy, said he was having a party at his villa – that’s what he called it – in the Keys, and he’d fly me down there, but if I had a boyfriend… So I explained that we like to party, you and I, and what happened to the more the merrier? So then he got all slimy, and said there’d be plenty of boys and girls there for you, too, and you can come as long as I’m there.” 

“Holy hell.” 

“Right?” Anita stood, pulling him with her, and began dancing Sam around. “Let Barton and Romanoff sneak into some basement. You and me get to party in paradise!”

Sam laughed at this sudden new side of Anita, shaking his head a little. “You realize this guy is all _kinds_ of trouble?”

“So am I, Sam, and so are you. C’mon, where’s your sense of adventure?”

Sam slid an arm around her waist, took her arm, and took control of the dance. Anita instantly noticed that he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Just so you know, I ain’t havin’ no three-way with you and some crazy Colombian asshole who thinks he can control the weather. I ain’t care what kinda cigars he got.”

“Duly noted. Now tell me where you learned to dance like that.”

“Harlem, of course. My people got moves, same as yours.”

“You know, Sam,” Anita purred as he led her through a complicated sequence that he led so well she followed step for step, “It’s kind of a shame it took a crisis like this to get you to notice me.”

Sam stopped abruptly and almost dropped her. “Say _what_?”


	6. It Wasn't Bleedin' Mother Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Anita get their groove on. Bucky is _not_ getting into that treatment room. Steve needs to cool it with his hugs when Bucky has broken ribs. Bruce and Catherine get to the bottom of some things, including a bottle of wine. Brokenhearted Natasha gets saved on the street.

Sam’s phone rang as he and Anita stood facing one another, stilled in the midst of their dance. He gave her a pointed look. “We’re not done talkin’ about this.”

He reluctantly let go of her and pulled his phone from his pocket, seeing that Tony Stark was calling, checking in now that he and Steve had landed in Atlanta. Sam told him about Anita’s call from Arias, and they adjusted the team’s plans.

“Be careful, man,” Tony said. “Seriously, watch your back around that guy.”

“Believe me, I don’t trust this guy as far as I can spit him. Agent Herrera and I will be there together, and we’ll be watchin’ each other’s backs. We’ll be careful.”

“I reserve the right to give you shit about you and her at some point in the future. But right now, Rogers is pulling my arm out of the socket trying to get me off this plane so he can get to Barnes. I barely restrained him from jumping out of the jet without a parachute when we were over the crash site.”

“Yeah, he does that.”

Tony and Sam ended their call, and Sam turned back to Anita. Since he’d put the call on speaker, there was no need to tell her anything.

“So, now, let’s get back to the part where you wanted me to notice you? And where you think I didn’t?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

Anita’s flirtatious smile, coupled with the fact that she stepped back to him to resume their dance, did marvelous – but dangerous – things to him. “Well, you never talked to me before the other night.”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t notice you,” Sam assured her, taking her hand with one of his, and placing the other on her hip again. He began a sexy salsa step he suspected she’d know.

He was right.

Anita was more than graceful. She followed Sam step for step, and somehow also found a way to shift within his arms, moving against him in exactly the way the dance was intended for. They smiled at each other, neither worried about the fact that there was no music. For them, suddenly, there was. 

“Tell me,” he murmured into her ear.

“C’mon, Sam. You really want to talk right now?”

“I wouldn’t mind hearin’ about you wantin’ me to notice you.”

“That’s a little conceited, you know,” Anita purred, moving closer.

“So sue me,” Sam whispered, tightening his arm and leaning in to meet her lips with his.

Sam had thought Anita was good at following his dance moves. When he kissed her, he learned a whole new meaning to the phrase “following his moves”.

*****

Steve had no desire to go to the crash site once he learned that Bucky was at the hospital. Bucky had refused to check in, or even to be examined, just insisted on being at Joss’s side in the helicopter and then in the ER. She was taken directly into a treatment room. The paramedics and several hospital personnel tried to keep him from following her into the room, and were quickly silenced by the mere look on Bucky’s face. 

That is, until a very young-looking Asian nurse who could not have been five feet tall, with a name badge that identified her as Li, RN, placed herself in front of Bucky, right in the doorway, and smiled sweetly up at him.[1] “I apologize, Sir, but I can’t let you in.”

Bucky growled menacingly. 

Li nodded with understanding, completely unimpressed. She only smiled with added warmth and empathy. “I know. I understand how you feel. But the first thing we’re going to do is cut off all her clothes and examine her. It’s not very dignified. No matter how close you two are, if it was me, I wouldn’t want you to see me like that. You’re not really going to do that to her, are you?” 

It wasn’t a question. Besides which, Bucky had a very long lifetime of reading his opponents that told him he was overmatched here. 

So he was in the waiting room, intimidating everyone and pacing angrily, when Steve burst through the sliding doors, followed at a more reasonable pace by Tony and Sharon. Seeing Steve approaching at approximately Mach 2, Bucky could do nothing but brace himself for the impact of two hundred-plus pounds of overwrought muscle. It actually hurt. Bucky was ashamed of the little squeak he emitted as Steve crushed the air from his lungs. 

“Steve, shit! Got some cracked ribs, there, pal. Not helping.”

“Shut up,” Steve snapped, not letting up. “You gotta quit fuckin’ dyin’, Buck, I can’t take it,” he muttered into Bucky’s shoulder.

“Yeah, same, Steve. Same. Now let go of me. Seriously. Or you’re just gonna kill me again.”

Steve loosened his hold, but didn’t let go. Bucky could tell that was, in part, because he was too emotional at the moment, so he just put his right arm around Steve’s back and patted him until he quieted. “OK, buddy. I know. I’m fine.”

At long last, Steve relaxed his hold on Bucky and took a step back. Tony and Sharon stepped up. Sharon gave Bucky a quick, one-armed hug, while Tony went to Bucky’s left and took his arm in his hands. 

“Arm’s not working?”

“It’s busted up. Worked for a while after the crash, but it’s dead now. You bring your tools?”

“Always.” Tony lifted the leather case he carried in his hand, which looked like a briefcase, but was obviously very heavy. “Got more on the jet, if we need ‘em. There a place we can take a look?” 

“I’ll get us a place,” Sharon said, already on the way to the nurses’ station.

Steve watched as Tony began examining Bucky’s metal arm. “Coulson says Lattimore and two of the Secret Service agents died in the crash.”

Bucky grunted affirmatively. “Singer’s already in surgery; he’s hurt pretty bad. Joss, though, she’s in there,” he indicated the double doors from the waiting room to the treatment area. 

“Joss, huh?” Steve asked, with only the slightest hint of amusement in his voice.

“Yeah. Joss. You gotta meet this girl, Steve, she’s something.”

“She hurt bad?”

“Looks like it. They wouldn’t let me stay with her.”

At Bucky’s words, and the deep concern in his voice, Steve and Tony glanced at one another over Bucky’s shoulder.

Sharon returned quickly with a man wearing scrubs. “There’s a room we can use. Julio’s going to take us there. Had to promise you’d let them treat your injuries, though,” she said, looking at Bucky. He simply nodded once. 

As they followed Julio into the treatment area, Sharon said, “They’re taking Joss to surgery, Bucky. She’s bleeding internally. They’ll keep us updated.”

Bucky nodded again, face grim.

Steve nudged Sharon with his arm as they walked. “How do you know that about Agent Emerson? Aren’t there rules against telling non-family members anything about how a patient’s doing?”

“You’d be surprised what S.H.I.E.L.D. credentials and a certain attitude can get you.”

“Huh. You’re a little scary, you know that?”

“Damn right. Keep it in mind.”

*****

By one A.M., Bruce and Catherine had about exhausted the limits of caffeine’s ability to help them concentrate. Both were rubbing sore eyes, and had switched contacts for glasses. Bruce took his off and wiped a hand down his face, sighing heavily.

“I think I gotta take a break. Did we eat dinner?”

Catherine made a negative sound, moving something on her display that changed the shape of a curved line on the graph she was studying.

“You find something?”

“I’ve pretty much got these atmospheric disturbances sorted. And the wildfire? That was lightning, from the same sort of storm we saw in Atlanta.” She looked through the display at Bruce. “These storms are not natural. They’re too uniform. Not only individually – the storms have a shape and pattern that is entirely too perfect to be natural – but collectively. They’re shockingly similar in many ways. Buggered if I know what’s causing them, but I know it’s something other than bleedin’ Mother Nature. The earthquake, you’re on your own.”

“How about you? You doing OK?”

“I’m knackered, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Anyone ever tell you, you get more English when you’re tired?”

Catherine started to grin, but appeared to think better of it, choosing instead not to respond.

Seeing that, Bruce flinched slightly and stammered, “I’m, um… I gotta get a sandwich. Maybe a nap. You hungry?”

“A little, yeah.”

“Let’s go raid the kitchen. I could find you a place to crash, too, if you like.”

“Let’s see how I feel after we eat something.”

In the common kitchen on the residential floor, Bruce found plenty of materials to make a late-night meal. He also found some very good wine, and thought a glass would be nice right then, but didn’t suggest it. Catherine already seemed edgy. Maybe even edgier than he was. 

She was sitting at the table, head in hands, resting her eyes when he set a plate and a bottle of sparkling water in front of her, startling her a bit. “Ooh. Guess I’m a little more tired than I thought.”

“You’re entitled. We’ve been at this for a while.”

“What’ve you found?”

“That earthquake in Zambia. It wasn’t on a fault. Way too shallow, too. To quote a friend, ‘it wasn’t bleedin’ Mother Nature’ that caused it.”

Catherine grinned tiredly. “We’re friends now?”

“Yeah, Cathy,” Bruce sighed. “Always. At least, I’m your friend.”

“I’m sorry, Bruce. I shouldn’t have said that. Forget it. I’m just tired.” Catherine took a long drink and didn’t look at him, muttering afterward, “I’d kill for a bevvy.”

Raising an eyebrow and pushing back his chair, Bruce said, “At least there, I can help you. No murder necessary.”

When he showed her the bottle, Catherine’s face lit up. “You open that, we’re definitely friends.”

Bruce searched for a corkscrew, wanting desperately to continue the conversation. All day, as they’d worked side by side, he’d been reminded of their time together at Oxford, the only time their careers and lives had actually allowed them to live together for a while. He’d ached all day to tell Catherine how much he still cared about her, and ask her whether she hated him for what he’d had to do. To beg her not to. But he knew how selfish that would be, and of all things he did not want to be to her, selfish was at the top of the list. Not number one – number one would always be ‘dangerous’ – but definitely in the top five. So he let the opening go, and changed the subject.

“I need to call Coulson,” he said as he pulled the wrapping from the neck of the bottle. “We need some core samples from Zambia.”

“You have a theory?”

“Several, and I’d like to see whether any of them are possible.”

They batted around Bruce’s theories as he opened the wine and found glasses. Sitting back down across from Catherine, he poured generous portions for them both and they held their glasses up briefly to one another before taking their first sips.

“Oh, yeah,” Catherine sighed, “That’s nice.”

“No kidding. This kind of stuff is the reason I hang out with Tony Stark.”

“Not his sparkling wit and impish charm?”

“That, too. And, you know, the fact that he’s one of the few people I know who ever knows what the hell I’m talking about.”

Catherine grinned. 

“Present company excepted, of course.”

“Of course.”

Bruce hadn’t intended for them to finish the bottle. He’d never have dared hope that would happen. But they’d always had a lot to talk about, and they’d always enjoyed each other’s company. Tonight there might have been a minefield of topics they had to avoid, but there was also a fascinating scientific mystery to solve that more than made up for the things they couldn’t say to one another. Which meant they spent almost two hours talking seriously about scientific theories and possibilities, tests and simulations they could run, interspersed with laughter and occasional short tangents about what they’d been doing since they’d seen one another last. 

Catherine’s short hair reminded him of the style she’d worn when they’d met, although it was shorter now. He lost track of what she was saying as he studied the always-stunning combination of her jet black hair with her emerald green eyes and pale, English complexion. It was the first thing he’d noticed when he’d first seen her at the Technical University of Munich eight years before. Bruce and Catherine had been panelists at a weeklong seminar on modeling interactions between the natural and technical environment for an audience of masters degree students in the Environmental Engineering program and, never particularly smooth with women, he’d been struck nearly speechless as she’d walked into the vast lecture hall to take her place near him at the long table in the front of the room. 

The semi-circle of raked seats rose thirty rows above them, making the area at the base of the hall seem strangely intimate. Even so, Bruce would probably never have found the courage to make more than polite conversation with her except that the students had turned out to be a tough crowd. It wasn’t until later that he and Catherine learned that their mutual friend Andris, a Greek smartass and tenured professor at TUM tasked with organizing the seminar, had required the students to challenge the panel to the best of their ability. Their grades would depend, in part, on how well they performed that task.

On the third day of the seminar, one kid had actually managed to get Dr. Banner and Dr. Mulready to disagree on the artificial neural network model developed at the University Brunei Darussalam for testing the effects of weather on solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface. They’d politely agreed on some of its results: solar radiation is directly proportional to the atmospheric temperature while it is inversely proportional to the relative humidity, and wind speed has little influence on solar radiation. But they’d vigorously debated the functional relationships between solar radiation, atmospheric temperature, and relative humidity. 

They’d still been arguing about it at the panelists’ dinner that night. Andris, thoroughly amused and smugly proud of himself, kept raising the topic every time they tried to move on. In the end, they realized he was baiting them and dropped it for good, instead joining forces to good-naturedly provoke him in retaliation. But by then, the damage was done. They were sitting next to one another at a long table in Andris’s apartment, halfway through dinner and thoroughly smitten with one another. 

Bruce knew when they agreed to share a cab back to their hotel that he was playing with fire. If the disastrous demise of his relationship with Betty Ross had taught him anything, it was that he could never again try to have a relationship. And he didn’t kid himself about Catherine Mulready. Even then Bruce knew that he could fall hard for a woman like that. If he was being honest with himself, he was already well on his way. When they’d met three days before, he’d been a goggling teenager. After that, he’d listened to her and become fascinated with her research and the way her mind worked, becoming even more tongue-tied around her, the more impressed and intrigued he became. Then, today, when that little German twit had proposed his asinine theory and Catherine had agreed with him, he’d suddenly forgotten all that as they launched into a full-blown professional difference of opinion followed by a smooth transition to partners in crime when they realized they’d been had.

He’d hoped maybe she would bid him a professional good night, right up until the point when he’d walked her to her door and, before she could get her key into the slot, watched himself reach a hand out to stroke her hair. She’d leaned into his hand and turned her face to him, and before he’d known what he was doing, he had her crushed to him and her warm, soft lips under his. Bruce didn’t remember now how they’d gotten into her room, all he could remember was the way he’d pressed her up against the back of the door once it closed behind them. 

It wasn’t like in the movies. They didn’t tear each other’s clothes off right then and there. They’d taken their time. They’d flirted and kissed, teased and gotten distracted, so that by the time they were standing next to her bed, they still had most of their clothes left to take off of one another. They only got as far as footwear and jackets before they were lying side by side, which meant that, when they began to unbutton and unfasten, they could go very, very slowly.

Which, as it turned out, was Bruce’s specialty. One of the side effects of all the time he’d spent working on calming and focusing was that he could be an excruciatingly patient lover. Each button on Catherine’s blouse meant long minutes of kissing while his fingers made their incremental, lazy way from her neck to the next button. Nothing she could say or do would speed him up, which was as intoxicating as it was deliciously frustrating. She got all the exquisite thrill of suspense, while he got to listen to her whine and beg while she moved against him, trying to encourage him. 

By the time he finally bared her breasts, she’d had his shirt off for over half an hour, and she complained that the worst part was that she couldn’t even be mad, because the way he used his mouth made it oh, so entirely worth the wait. It took even longer to get her skirt off, and another eternity before he slid her panties from her. All of that anticipation meant that when he was finally, blessedly inside her, it took him all of five seconds to give her the first climax. Best of all, Bruce’s implacable patience meant that, by the time the sun rose, she’d lost count.

In the end, the German kid got a great grade for the seminar, and Bruce and Catherine ended up spending the rest of their nights in Munich together. And every possible night thereafter. 

It wasn’t until Catherine yawned that Bruce realized he was staring at her in his reverie, and how late it was. The wine had been gone for a while by then, and he was a little buzzed. Not too much, the world just had a nice glow and the idea of somebody being able to dial up disasters on command didn’t seem _quite_ so cataclysmic right now. He stood, trying not to yawn himself.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kept you awake. I can show you to a guest room where you can get some sleep.”

Catherine smiled tiredly as she pushed her chair from the table. “That would be good.”

Bruce led her to the floor above, where his apartment was. There was a vacant apartment next to it, which he knew Tony kept ready for situations like this. Opening the door for her, he stood just inside, meaning to step aside for Catherine, but when she took a step, he found himself unable to move. In the soft nighttime light from the hallway, with only a table lamp inside casting a glow on her face, she looked beautiful. It reminded him of Munich, and of all the times they’d met in hotels and apartments all over the world, wherever they could arrange to be together before their obligations would force them apart again. Of the sweet anticipation of stealing a night, or a few nights, together, when they’d been so in love and so passionate every time they were together because they were apart so much. Before she’d learned his terrible secret. Before London. 

“Cathy…” he breathed.

She stopped just in front of him, looking up with sudden concern. “What is it?”

“I just, um, thought that you might maybe want to, aah… Maybe stay with me. I’m just next door, and I… we…”

For a moment, they stood face to face, inches apart, in the shadowy entrance of the vacant apartment. Her eyes shone, and he could see that her pupils were slightly dilated, either with the dim light or with want, he couldn’t know. He reached for her, touching her soft cheek with two fingers and sliding them down to trail along her jaw, then taking a shallow breath in as he slowly, tentatively leaned toward her. 

“Don’t, Bruce.” She whispered.

He froze where he was, but didn’t take his fingers from her face or move away.

“Please don’t play with me.”

“No, Cathy -“

“Don’t kiss me unless you plan to stay this time. Because I was gutted when you left. You know that. I can’t do that again.”

“Cathy…” he said again, putting a hand on either of her shoulders and laying his forehead to hers. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“Then let’s just have a kip and we’ll see each other in the morning, yeah?”

It seemed a long time before Bruce was able to pull himself away from her. “Yeah. Yeah, OK,” he sighed. “Sleep well.”

“You, too.”

*****

Santiago Cárdenas wasn’t supposed to be out of Site B, but he ran out of smokes, and he sure wasn’t gonna spend the next ten hours down in that hellhole without _garros_. Besides, the boss was having his big party down in the Keys, and Santi’s ass was stuck up here in D.C. while a bunch of the _paisas_ got to go down there and do security. It sucked, and he was pissed. So he was heading to the bodega, and fuck Arias if he didn’t like it.

The redhead crying on the curb outside the little store was a surprise. The first thing he noticed - after the crying, of course – was that she was _fine_. Like, _really_ fine. So, being a gentleman, Santi slowed and then made a command decision. 

“Hey, lil’ mama, what’s wrong?”

She looked up at him, and the pain in her eyes actually touched him. She gave a weak little smile and shrugged. “I’m OK,” she said. 

Well, that was obviously bullshit, and her very short skirt gave him a look at some _really_ nice legs. So he stepped a little closer. “Nah, man, you ain’t OK. You need some help, something?”

That apparently made her cry a little more. She wiped her eyes, but the next smile was a little bigger. “I just… I got dumped. I know, it’s pathetic, right? Sitting here on the street crying?”

“Nah, _Mami_ , it ain’t pathetic. What’s pathetic is some asshole dumping a woman as fine as you.” Santi went over and actually sat next to her which, a little to his surprise, she allowed. 

“He cheated.”

“See? Pathetic asshole. I told you.”

She laughed a little through her tears. “You’re nice.”

“Nicer than that piece of shit, anyway. Listen, can I do anything? You, um… I was just gonna get me some smokes. You maybe want a smoke?”

“That would be great. Shit, I don’t even have my purse or anything. I just ran out of the apartment.”

“I got you, _Mami_. Be right back.”

When Santi came back out of the bodega, she’d dried her eyes and was standing up. Oh, yeah, this one was a real looker. That tight T-shirt under her jacket, and the short skirt… Santi was in love. He made a big show of lighting her _garro_ for her. 

“So, I’m Santiago. Friends call me Santi. You?”

“Natasha.”

“Beautiful name.”

“Thanks.”

They smoked in silence for a few moments. “So, Natasha, you live with this guy?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, yeah, we live together, but I don’t know if I’m going back. I just… I need some time to think. To get my head on straight, you know?”

“Sure. ‘Course I know. So, listen, I gotta go, I gotta get back to work.” Santi looked down and ran a hand across the back of his neck. “I’m not even supposed to be out of the building right now, I just ran out of smokes and had to get some.”

Natasha’s face clouded with what Santi thought looked like fear. 

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, yeah… I guess. Yeah.”

“Hey, listen, _Mami_ , you gonna be OK? He isn’t gonna, like, hit you or nothin’, right?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that.”

This Natasha was a terrible liar. “He does. He hits you, don’t he?”

“No. I’ll be fine. Thanks for the smoke, Santi.”

Reluctantly, Santi began to turn from her, then turned back. “Hey, you wanna, uh… You wanna trade numbers? So you could let me know you’re OK?”

“Really?” Natasha said, her face lighting up as she pulled her phone from her pocket. 

So they put each other’s numbers into their phones. Santi then pushed his phone back into the pocket of his jeans and got ready to shuffle back to work. Waving at her in a way he immediately realized was idiotic, he turned around and made his way back down the block, looking back at her as she settled back down on the curb. 

The last time he looked before turning the corner, he saw that a dude was standing behind her on the sidewalk, talking loudly to her. She seemed to know him, and not to be happy about him being there. Santi couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he could tell from their voices it wasn’t pleasant. _The boyfriend. Had to be._

The guy looked like he had some serious muscle on him. Just the way he stood, the way he moved. Still, she’d said he cheated on her, and she was _really_ nice looking. He liked her low, silky voice, too. This could be his chance to score some big points with her. She’d given him her number, right? She was into him. So Santi decided to take a chance.

Sauntering back toward the bodega, putting a little extra roll in his hips as he did, Santi waited until the dude noticed him before calling out, “Hey, Natasha, this guy botherin’ you? You need me to get rid of him?”

Natasha looked a little scared. She shook her head without looking at Santi and looked down at the street. The dude stood a little straighter, waiting for Santi to approach him before he said, “Look, this is between me and my girlfriend, _amigo_. Why don’t you just go back the way you came, huh?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. If you’re Natasha’s boyfriend, that means you’re the one cheated on her. How about you just leave her alone.”

The dude took a step toward Santi, trying to look taller as he did. He wasn’t very tall, a couple inches shorter than Santi was, with light-ish blue eyes and short, almost military-short, dark hair. Santi was a little unsure about this, because the guy did look fit. But he didn’t seem all that confident, not really. He was putting on a bravado Santi was pretty sure he was faking. That, and the way Natasha was looking at him like he was her hero, made Santi’s decision for him.

“I’m not gonna ask again. Get to gettin’. I mean it. Natasha wants to see you, she’ll come to you.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, talkin’ to me about my woman?”

“Whether she’s your woman, that’s her decision. Which she’s makin’ right now. You want her to see me wipe the street with your ass when she’s tryna decide whether to take your cheatin’ ass back?”

The dude stepped closer, so Santi stepped closer. They were practically chest to chest, and Santi was glad, because it accentuated the fact that he was taller. 

“You better shut your mouth, Junior.”

Santiago grinned in what he hoped was an evil way. “Make me. _Grandpa_.”

The guy telegraphed his swing like Santi couldn’t believe. Which made it easy to raise his forearm and block it, although it hurt a little. At the same time, Santi made a solid connection with the dude’s chin, and the guy turned around, leaning down, hurt. Santi felt ten feet tall. His hand hurt for sure, but he wasn’t gonna let Natasha, or this dude, see that. 

The scuffle that followed was short, but brutal. Both of them were bleeding when it was over, but Santi was thrilled to find that he got the better of it. Holding the guy’s arm behind his back in a way he hoped hurt, Santi told him in no uncertain terms to go home and leave Natasha alone. The guy cussed him out like Santi hadn’t heard in a while, but he left. 

As he did, Santi went over to Natasha, who had stood up and was cowering near a car parked on the side of the street. 

“He gonna give you any trouble about that?” Santi asked. 

“He… He might,” she answered weakly. “I probably shouldn’t go back to the apartment tonight.”

“You got somewhere else to go?”

“Um… Not really,” she said, looking down at her feet.

“Well, you can… If you want, I mean, I’m not supposed to or nothin’, but… If you want, you could come to where I work. You could hang out until my shift is done, then see what you wanna do.”

Natasha hesitated. “I don’t know…”

“C’mon, _Mami_. It’s late and this is D.C. You shouldn’t be out here by yourself, especially if that _maricón_ comes back.”

“Well… Is it far?”

“No. A couple blocks. Come on.”

Natasha made sure to brush against Santiago’s arm several times as they walked toward their destination.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Li means ‘plums’ in Chinese. I’m not even sorry.


	7. Anderson Cooper Hates Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They might be underground, but Natasha gets everyone high. Clint is embarrassed for his gender. Sam and Anita arrive in Sodom. Or is it Gomorrah? Bucky yells at Joss, then she gets a dose of pain medicine and says way too much.

Santiago wasn’t a bad guy. Natasha could have actually liked him; you know, if he wasn’t a flunkie working for a douche canoe possibly bent on mass destruction. He led her right to an entrance to Arias’s “Site B”, about a quarter-mile from the industrial park entrance Sam and Anita had been brought through. First objective accomplished. This entrance was in back of a vacant storefront, a nondescript but heavy metal door that led to a simple stairway down into the complex below. Pleased that it had been so easy, Natasha nonetheless gave Santi a skeptical look.

“Wait, where are you taking me? What kind of place is this? I don’t know about this…”

“Relax, _Mami_ , it’s all good. My boss is a paranoid rich dude. This is just one of his facilities. You can trust me, I’m a security guard,” he smiled.

“Promise?”

“Of course.”

From his perch on a rooftop down the alleyway, Clint watched and waited. He knew he was going to lose comms with Natasha soon as they traveled very far underground, and he would need to enter the complex. But he wanted to give them a good head start. After that, remaining undetected would be a matter of luck. 

The stairway was long and dim. Sam hadn’t been wrong about how far underground this place was. When they finally emerged at the bottom, Natasha saw that they were in the garage-like space Sam had described. 

“OK, listen,” Santi said, turning to her so he could speak quietly. “Like I said, you’re not supposed to be here. So Imma have to hide you somewhere. Follow me.”

Santi led her along one concrete wall of the vast space, past trucks painted to look like Con Ed service trucks, a couple of panel vans with logos of businesses on their sides, and several cars. The metal door he approached opened with a combination Natasha instantly memorized, and she followed Santi down a bare concrete hallway lined with the pipes and conduits Anita Herrera had described. Natasha saw what Anita had meant. There was an inordinate amount of electricity running through this hallway. 

Natasha was glad to note that the door to which Santi led her didn’t squeak, and did have a lock that could be thrown from the inside. It looked like a little employee lounge of some kind, sad and spartan, but apparently well-used. She took a moment to be grateful that, as annoying as Tony Stark was, the work environment he provided the Avengers beat the shit out of this painted-concrete cellar.

“OK. You’ll be all right here. Just lock the door after I leave. Most of the people are gone this weekend, so there’s just a few of us guards. I’ll think of a reason to tell them not to come in here.”

“Wait, no- you’re not leaving me alone here, are you? I mean…” Natasha put on a vulnerable look she knew from long experience to be irresistible.

“I gotta. I’m supposed to be patrolling. There’s cameras. Mostly, nobody watches ‘em but, I mean, they’ll notice I’m missing after a while.”

“But what if they catch me here?”

“You lock the door, and let me take care of the rest.” Natasha had taken a seat on a stained, utilitarian sofa against one wall of the small room, and Santi actually knelt down beside her. It was a sweet, protective move. She supposed she’d feel guilty for what she was about to do, if she bothered with things like guilt anymore. 

“Well, how many other guys are here? Are they gonna try to get in?”

“There’s only five of us, and I told you, I’ll make up some excuse for them not to come in here.”

Natasha didn’t look convinced. “Do you think it would be OK if I smoked a little weed? It’ll calm me down.”

“Sure, that’s fine. We do in here, sometimes. No cameras.”

She pulled a small plastic container from a pocket of her jacket and set it on the table, popping open the lid to reveal a tiny one-hitter lying in a bed of what was technically marijuana, although Tony Stark had objected loudly to even allowing anything that weak in his building. Plucking the tiny pipe out carefully, Natasha looked up at Santi with a grin as she packed a hit. “Here. You deserve it, after what you did for me. Careful, though. This stuff’ll knock you on your ass.”

“I don’t know, man, weed makes me sleepy,” Santi objected, but not very strongly.

“Huh,” Natasha shrugged, taking her hand back from where she’d offered the one-hitter to him. “Makes me horny,” she murmured just before setting it between her lips and lighting it, sucking in the smoke.

As expected, that got Santi’s attention. “Yeah, that, too.”

“You smoke before? Because, like I said, this stuff is kinda strong.”

“Don’t worry, _Mami_ , I can handle it.”

When she offered it to him a second time, he took the small metal pipe, seeing nothing but the promising little smile she gave him. Certainly he didn’t notice her switch the one-hitter with another that had been up her sleeve.

They each took two hits before Santi was unconscious. Natasha laid him down – he seemed like an OK guy, really, and it had to look like he’d just fallen asleep from the marijuana – before she spoke to Clint.

“You in?” She asked, the microphone in her earring picking up everything.

“Yeah,” she heard him respond in her earpiece. “I’m on the stairs, just outside the door.”

“It opens into the underground garage Sam told us about. Hang on. I’m gonna go up there. I’ll let you in when it’s clear.”

“Copy that.”

The drug she’d used on Santi would keep him unconscious for around four hours. This part had been easy, but the rest was pure improvisation. Natasha smiled. She was good at improvisation.

There were no sounds in the hallway as she cracked the door and listened. Since she didn’t have a key, she smiled as she used the specially-designed jewelry Clint had given her for her navel piercing to lock the door behind her. Dang, that thing came in handy. She’d have to remember to thank him for it again.

Maybe. Or maybe he’d think she was trying to remind him of their time together on Eleuthera, where she’d gotten the piercing to begin with. Holy shit, but they’d been drunk. Much of that week after Budapest was a blur, although not enough of it. Not the part where she’d told him she loved him, too. Not the look in his eyes when she’d later pretended not to remember.

The door to the garage area was open, which gave Natasha time to spot the guy coming toward her and plaster a huge smile on her face. 

“Hi!” She called to him when he noticed her, her unexpected greeting stopping the motion of his hand as he reached for something on his belt.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Natasha. I came down here with Santi? But, um, we were partying and” - she giggled drunkenly - “he passed out.” 

“He what? He brought you down here? And now he’s - Where is he, that _hijueputa_?”

“Break room. But don’t be mad. C’mon, we were just having a little fun. I mean, this place is a _drag_ , you know?”

The guy, short and barrel-shaped, marched right past Natasha, grabbing her wrist on the way and beginning to drag her into the hallway toward the room where Santi was. She let him, continuing to giggle softly. 

“Don’t be mad. Hey, what’s your name? I’m Natasha. Oh, wait, I told you that already.”

They reached the door and the guy tried to pull at it, surprised to find it locked. 

“Oh, oops! I think I musta done that.” More giggles. 

The guy pulled a key ring from his pocket, fastened with a long, drooping chain to his belt loop. He kept iron fingers around Natasha’s wrist as he roughly unlocked and yanked the door open. Santi lay peacefully sleeping on the couch, even as the guy began cursing him in Spanish and trying to shake him awake. 

“No, c’mon… let him sleep. He’s just stoned. He’ll be fine. You can see he’s breathing and stuff.”

The guy turned to Natasha. “You gotta get out of here. You’re not supposed to be here.”

Natasha smiled beatifically. “I know. Santi told me. But we weren’t doing anything, and he said your boss wasn’t here right now, so no one would care. Are you mad at me?”

“I just gotta get you out of here. Come on.”

“At least tell me your name.”

“Alejandro. You sure he’s just stoned?”

“Yeah. We were smoking this.” Natasha pulled out her plastic container. “You want some?”

“No. Come on.”

“Please, Alejandro? Because I got dumped by my boyfriend tonight, and if I go back to our apartment, he’s gonna hit me. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and Santi was nice to me. I just needed someplace to sort of hang out, get my head together, you know? Please don’t make me leave. I’ll stay right here. And I’ll share my weed with you.”

“I don’t think I want any of your weed. Look what it did to poor Santi,” Alejandro said, but he was grinning. Natasha knew then that she had him. Clint would just need to be a little patient.

Twenty minutes later, Clint was sitting on the bottom stair, chin in hand, when Natasha opened the door from the garage area. “’Bout time,” he groused.

“I know, but there are only three left. And if we’re lucky, we won’t meet any of them. Let’s get going.”

For twenty or thirty minutes, Clint and Natasha had free rein to look wherever they liked. Natasha would enter a room, find the cameras, and make sure she and her unhappy countenance were very visible to whoever might be monitoring them as she disabled them. After that, Clint would enter the room and they would investigate it thoroughly. Everything they found was in Spanish, which wouldn’t have been much of a problem, except it was also in some sort of code. There was really no way to tell what this place was for from what they’d found so far. All they could do was photograph everything and hope they could figure it out later.

And then there was a loud commotion as two men came running down the concrete hallway toward the room in which Clint melted into the shadows under a desk and Natasha stood, seemingly alone, gazing around.

“Who the hell are you?” One of the men asked in heavily-accented English. “’The fuck you doin’ to our cameras?”

“Hi! I’m Natasha.”

“What the hell are you doing here? How’d you get in here?”

“It’s kind of a long story. I was partying with Santi and Alejandro? But they passed out and now I’m bored and I don’t know how to get out of here.”

“Why the hell are you trashin’ all our cameras?”

“I don’t like them. There’s no privacy in the twenty-first century. We’re all too comfortable being watched every second. You wanna help me with the revolution?” 

The two men held an incredulous, furious conversation in Spanish while Natasha stood a few feet away, a perplexed look on her face.

“Hey, guys, I don’t speak Spanish, you know? I’m not trying to steal anything. I just came down here because me and my boyfriend had a fight, and I met Santi, and I didn’t have anywhere to go…” 

Clint was cramped and impatient waiting under the desk, but he was at least mildly entertained by how easy it was for Natasha to work her spell on these idiots, too. When they were both passed out on the floor, he was actually a little embarrassed on behalf of his gender. 

They found the fifth and last guy after another half hour of exploration. This guy wasn’t about to fall for Natasha’s weed trick, however, because he was behind a door with an electronic lock she should not have been able to open. He ended up getting Clint’s knee in his face, which meant that they had to dose him with the drug Clint had brought in a case attached to his belt. The poor guy wouldn’t remember anything about how he ended up in the bunkroom Clint and Natasha found. They could only hope he would deduce - from the stories the other guys would tell and, of course, from his nudity and the position in which he found himself - that he, too, had met Natasha. He could probably claim bragging rights, because it would appear that he had gotten further with her than the other guys had before he passed out, fell off the cot, and broke his nose.

The machine he was there to guard made absolutely no sense to either Clint or Natasha. It filled the cavernous room, and was clearly the destination for all that power. It was shaped like a square, stepped pyramid, which caused Clint to dub it the Chichen Itza machine, with a level of panels near the top glowing a sickly green. The dry, ozone-scented heat in the room explained why the machine had its own cooling system, which was one of the reasons it was housed behind locked doors. There was nothing that indicated to Clint or Natasha what it did, though. All they could do was take video and photo after photo of it from every angle, both close up and panoramic, and hope Bruce and Tony could make some sense of it. 

Once they’d finished that, they just had to find the place where the cameras were monitored, to make sure they left no video evidence of their escapades for anyone to find later. Finding the monitoring station wasn’t much of a challenge, nor was reprogramming the system to double-record the next few hours and replace all the recordings in which Clint or Natasha appeared.

The problem came when they discovered there was a sixth guard. 

*****

Jarman Arias’s plane wasn’t as nice as Tony Stark’s. Sam made a little face at the thought of a guy like him having preferences in private jets. Anita noticed the look and leaned in. “What’s the joke?”

Sam smiled. “I was just thinkin’ I like Stark’s jets better.”

She looked around. “Oh, I don’t know. This one doesn’t suck.”

There were only four other people on the plane. All of them were Hispanic, and they all clearly knew each other. The six passengers were sitting together in a group, enjoying a sumptuous lunch served impeccably by the cabin attendant. The other four seemed happy to include Sam and Anita in their conversation, speaking English for Sam’s benefit. They laughed and carried on as though the party had already started which, in fact, it already had in that they were all drinking a Colombian ale that went perfectly with their broiled whitefish. There was plenty of flirtation, although the flight hadn’t been long enough for the others to determine how far they could go with Sam and Anita. Some couples were more exclusive than others, after all.

“We haven’t been to one of Jarman’s parties before,” Anita said to the group, just after feeding Sam a bite of perfectly-seared asparagus. “What should we expect?”

The other four laughed knowingly. “Hope you’ve gotten some sleep, and have healthy livers,” one man answered with a wink. “Because you’re about to learn why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Sam whistled. “Always wondered what those folks got up to,” he grinned.

Sam and Anita learned nothing about whatever Arias might be up to on the flight. The group wasn’t in the mood to talk about anything substantive. They only wanted to flirt and laugh. What little the two were able to learn suggested that these people, at least, weren’t expecting anything big or world-changing to happen anytime soon. 

In the meantime, Sam found himself falling naturally and easily into a habit of sitting close enough to Anita that they were always touching. For her part, Anita created several searing moments of meaningful eye contact between them combined with a soft, secret smile that Sam felt south of his belt line. The effect was outwardly a very convincing picture of an established couple who were very attracted to one another. Inwardly, for Sam at least, the effect was to turn him way the fuck on and make him wish desperately that they were going to the Keys to be alone together.

The group was met at the tiny private airport on Marathon Key by a sleek, white limousine that whisked them quickly to a set of ornate, manned gates in a long wall made of rock and shell. Inside the wall, Arias’s villa proved to be exactly that. It was massive, with balconies everywhere, and the fact that it had its own private beach was immediately obvious. The eight-foot-tall wall surrounded the entire property, extending all the way into the water. Sam and Anita shared a look that, to others, would appear to be just silently communicating their awe at the scene. Sam knew they were both noticing the overwhelming security. 

There were people everywhere, wearing bright colors and carrying drinks. Many of the women were scantily dressed – there was an abundance of bikinis – while the men tended to skew older and wore more business casual clothing. Sam wasn’t surprised by that. He was surprised by the fact that there were probably as many armed security guards as there were uniformed waiters. _Why’s a guy need armed security guards at a party, if he’s legit_? 

Almost instantly, Arias emerged from the house and walked over to the limo to greet his newly-arrived guests, specifically Anita. He welcomed her in rapid, jovial Spanish with an overly-friendly embrace and a double-cheek kiss. Only when he’d spent long minutes slobbering over her did he turn to Sam and his other guests. 

“Mr. Wilson, how delightful you could make it,” he said, slapping him heartily on the back. “One of my staff will be out soon to show you to your room, and they’ll take care of your luggage. My home is yours, please take advantage of my hospitality. Would you like a drink?”

Arias waved a waiter over. Sam said, “Thank you for flying us out. Your jet is… something.”

“Yes, isn’t it? I grew up in a _portazo_ , a slum, and I’ve never forgotten where I come from. That’s why I like the finer things now, and I like to share them with my friends.”

“Well, then,” Sam smiled, “I’m glad to be considered a friend.”

The oily simper he received in return raised the hair on the back of Sam’s neck. “Nonsense. It’s something of a coup to be able to call the Falcon my friend, and to welcome him to my home. So the pleasure is mine, _parcero_.”

Only after Anita coyly suggested that she was wearing too much clothing for the Keys did Arias reluctantly allow her to accompany Sam to the room assigned to them. Her slacks and gauzy, sleeveless top were actually very attractive and entirely appropriate for the weather, but not for a young woman in this crowd. In this crowd, she really was overdressed.

Their room was as ostentatiously luxurious as the rest of the huge house promised. Sam thought the bed could have comfortably slept 5 or 6 people and, given the environment, wondered whether it ever had. Anita stood near the center of the room, seemingly checking email on her cell phone. What she was actually doing was scanning for surveillance equipment, which she was not surprised to find. 

“Anything going on?” Sam asked as he unpacked the few days’ worth of clothes he’d brought. 

“Someone sent me a funny video,” she answered. “Wanna see? It’s got audio, too.”

“Nah. You and your cat videos,” he responded, seemingly absently, acknowledging her message that the room was under both video and audio surveillance.

She went into the bathroom, still looking at the screen of her phone. “Bad news, Sam,” she called from inside.

“What’s that, Babe?”

“I got no signal in here.”

“You sure?” 

“Positive.”

“Well, you’ll live. You’re too attached to that thing, anyway.”

 _So. No surveillance in the bathroom. Good to know for several reasons_ , Sam thought.

From the moment she and Sam re-appeared, Arias kept Anita plastered to his side. She wore a red bikini which Sam knew was going to fuel his dreams, covered by an open, lacy, white robe that swirled around her when she walked in her matching kitten-heeled mules. Sam’s loose board shorts were far less revealing, but his short-sleeved, button-down shirt hung open to reveal a firm chest and abs that Anita had commented on _very_ favorably. 

It was, of course, the plan that Anita would stay close to Arias, but Sam found himself deeply concerned, and even more jealous. He and Anita had just started… whatever it was they’d started. He wasn’t remotely in the mood to see some other guy all over her. And Arias _was_ all over her. He plied her with drinks (which she was very good at discreetly spilling) and kept an arm around her and a hand on her waist or hip almost continuously. Although it made Sam furious, he did notice that Arias made sure to introduce her to everyone they spoke to, and he’d overheard enough of the introductions to know that he usually added some tidbit about how he knew them. It was intended to impress her with the width of his influence and his impressive social contacts, and she was playing along beautifully. The more dazzled she seemed, the more he bragged, making it that much easier for her to gain information.

Meahwhile, Sam went into party mode, and began to meet people. It wasn’t hard. Everyone was drinking, and many of the guests recognized him, which made for an easy icebreaker. More than a few of the guests made overt passes at him, and Sam smirked to think how easy it would have been to fill up the bed in the room he was sharing with Anita. Given his natural charm, he had no trouble gently putting off amorous advances while still managing to gather a great deal of information. Between Sam and Anita, the afternoon and evening were very productive. 

*****

Joss blinked her eyes open, squinting against the afternoon light coming in the window. _Hmmm. Hospital room. Why… Oh, yeah._ She looked down and immediately saw the cast on her right forearm and hand. No surprise there, she’d known something was broken. She also felt the pain in her left side as soon as she moved to shift position. Which is when she turned her head to see Bucky asleep in a chair next to her hospital bed and holding her left hand. She couldn’t help it. She gasped in surprise, waking him.

“Bucky,” she mumbled, finding her throat scratchy and her voice weak.

He grinned sleepily at her. “How you feelin’, Kiddo?”

Joss noticed with a slight shiver that he didn’t let go of her hand, but rather squeezed it. She thought for a moment before answering. “A little sore, I guess. How’s Singer?”

“He’s in ICU. Expected to be OK, but he lost part of his right leg.”

“Damn,” she hissed. “That’s rough.” 

“You’ve been out of it for a while. What do you remember?”

Joss squinted. “I remember that President Lattimore is dead. I remember needing to stay with his body, and you telling me to go to the hospital, but then you got very blurry, and… Nothing after that.”

“That’s because you were all busted up inside. You had surgery. They had to take out your spleen.”

“My… Wait, I was _usin’_ my spleen. I don’t want it out. I _like_ my spleen.”

“Yeah, well, you had a broken floating rib that stabbed into it. Damn near killed you. Which is why I’m pissed as hell at you. You felt a hell of a lot worse than you told me, Joss. If you woulda bled to death because you were trying to be a hero, you’d have died of stupidity.”

She smiled wanly. “Well. It’s nice to know you care, even if you can’t land a plane for shit.”

“I am not joking around here! I been sitting here for hours waiting for you to wake up so I can yell at you about how reckless that was.” He certainly didn’t look like he was kidding. The thundercloud in his face rivaled those that had brought down the Quinjet.

Joss frowned. “Singer and Lattimore were in trouble. There were only four paramedics on site at the time. They needed our help.”

“We would’ve done all right. Woulda maybe cost Singer a few minutes, but that wouldn’t have changed anything for him. Obviously, it wouldn’t have changed things for Lattimore. It wasn’t worth you lying to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you. I never said I was fine.”

“You never said you were bleeding to death, either. You had to know how bad -“

A nurse came in at that moment, making Bucky and Joss realize their voices had risen a bit. 

“Well, Ms. Emerson, you’re awake. Good. I’ll let the doctor know. How do you feel?”

“Suddenly like a four-year-old,” she muttered, glaring at Bucky.

“Well.” The nurse said, and now she turned to glare at Bucky, too. “I need to examine my patient, Sir. I’m going to have to ask you to excuse us.”

“I’ll just wait outside,” he said, standing and letting go of Joss’s hand.

“Maybe you could come back tomorrow,” the nurse said, disapproval dripping from every syllable. “Ms. Emerson needs her rest.”

Joss was a little woozy to begin with, and the idea that Bucky looked disappointed that he couldn’t stay with her made her stomach swoop like she’d crested a hill too fast in her car. But before she could think of a way to ask him to stay, he left without a word. The nurse leaned down and began to take back Joss’s sheets, which blocked her from seeing Bucky’s regretful backward glance. 

Joss endured the nurse’s exam in resentful silence. That was not the way she’d wanted to end her last conversation with Bucky. She knew he wouldn’t be back; he obviously had better things to do. He’d just hung around so he could tell her what an idiot she was for not admitting how hurt she’d been. As if she’d had a choice. 

There’d been things that needed to be done at the crash site. It wasn’t like she had never planned to go to the hospital. Of course she had. She wasn’t stupid. But she didn’t get a chance to tell him that, which meant that now she’d be going through the rest of her life knowing that Bucky Barnes, stupendously hot and surprisingly sweet superhero, thought she was a careless twit. _Great_.

“Can you rate your pain for me?” The nurse asked. “Give me a number between one and ten.”

Joss wanted to ask whether she was talking about her stupid wounds or her heart. Either way, the answer was the same. “Maybe a six. Seven.”

“Sounds like you better let me give you some pain medicine.”

“Fine. Whatever.” 

While the nurse was gone, Joss sat staring at the blank white wall facing her hospital bed. Her head was reeling, but she had no way to judge how much was blood loss and how much was everything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. The President had died on her watch. She was going to have to answer a lot of questions about that. They would no doubt be asked politely, and she’d probably be buried under endless platitudes about how she’d done everything right, and it wasn’t her fault, and it could have happened on anyone’s watch, blah, blah, blah. It would all be the most transparent bullshit. Every single person who had ever heard of Adam Lattimore – basically the entire planet – would blame her, and they’d be right. 

Not to mention the fact that Joss actually found herself mourning the smarmy old perv. She was surprised as hell to realize that she’d actually kind of liked him. _Damn_. Worse, she knew she’d have to face Mrs. Lattimore. The woman was entitled to an apology, at the very least. She deserved to hear Joss acknowledge that she’d failed him. Joss wondered if her nurse would give her a shot of morphine before she had to have _that_ conversation.

And what the hell was going on with these storms and tornadoes and that earthquake? There was no way the storm they’d been caught in was natural, which meant there was somebody out there who could create a freaking _tornado _. That was just fucking terrifying. She understood now why S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers were involved, although not what any of this had to do with the President or that event. And, by the way, had she actually just woken up holding hands with Bucky Barnes?__

____

____

__The nurse returned with a syringe, which she quickly and efficiently screwed into a port in Joss’s IV. Not two seconds later, Joss could feel the effects of whatever the drug was._ _

__“Whoo,” she said. “That’s, um… that’s… wow. I forgot to tell you I’m a lightweight.”_ _

__“Don’t worry. It’s only half of what you can have, if you need it. We want to be sure your pain is well controlled.”_ _

__“I’m not worried about pain. I’m worried about seeing flying elephants and shit.”_ _

__“Well, if you do see any, let me know. I’ll have them removed.”_ _

__“Appreciate it.” Joss settled back against her pillows and watched in fascination as the nurse squiggled and walked on a floor that was definitely at a strange angle. She giggled a little as she found herself alone and, suddenly, very stoned._ _

__She didn’t notice Bucky come back in a moment later._ _

__“What’s funny?”_ _

__Joss was probably surprised to hear his voice next to her, but she was too high to know for sure. “You… Hey. You’re Bucky,” she drawled, grinning crookedly._ _

__“I get that all the time,” he smiled, taking the chair next to her bed again. “Did we just have some narcotics?”_ _

__“I did. I don’t know about you.” Joss giggled again at her own joke, then became suddenly overly serious. “I didn’t expect to see you back in here.”_ _

__“Do you want me to leave?”_ _

__“I thought you already did. I thought you’d already be on your way back to New York.”_ _

__Bucky frowned. “Why’d you think that?”_ _

__“Well, because. You’re all gorgeous and famous and stuff, and you got your chance to tell me what a dumbass I am, so I just figured you’d be…” She extended her arm, rolling her hand in a way Bucky guessed was intended to convey, uh, leaving maybe?_ _

__“I want to make sure you’re all right. That OK with you?”_ _

__Joss tilted her head, scowling adorably and clearly trying to figure out the answer to his question. “I don’t know.”_ _

__Bucky wasn’t sure what to do with that. “What don’t you know?”_ _

“I don’t know how good an idea that is. For me. Because I _really_ have a thing for you. Like, _bigtime_.” 

__Bucky blushed and looked down at Joss’s blanket, smiling almost shyly and giving an embarrassed laugh._ _

“Is it because you crashed me in a plane?” Joss asked, oblivious. “Because I didn’t really mean what I said. I’m sure you can land a plane. I’m sure you can do pretty much anything, I mean… _look_ at you. Why do you look like that, anyway?” 

__“Uh…”_ _

__“You got those big, pretty blue eyes, and that ridiculous jaw, and holy fuck don’t get me started on those lips. You should see what people on YouTube say about your hair. It’s graphic, Bucky. Gra. Phic.”_ _

__“OK, Joss, let’s maybe talk about something else now. That medicine work? You still hurting?”_ _

__“What, you don’t want to hear about how beautiful you are? Don’t pretend you don’t know. Of course you do. How come I can’t say it?”_ _

__“Because you’re gonna be mad at me for hearing it, that’s why.”_ _

“Do you know what I think you should do? Oh, this is a good idea. It is. I think you should kiss me. Then when I never see you again except on TV, at least I’ll be able to remember that you kissed me once.” 

“I’m not so sure you’re gonna remember any of this…” he muttered. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. OK, I’ll kiss you. But not right now. Later. When you’re not quite so medicated.” 

“It’s OK. I know. I’m inse- inconta- interconti- No, that’s not it.” She frowned in concentration. “In-con-se-quen-tial. Inconsequential. That’s why you don’t want to kiss me. I don’t blame you. You can lift entire airplanes and I don’t even have a spleen.” 

“What? You’re not inconsequential.” 

“Compared to you, I am. You’re on cereal boxes with that guy. You know, that, um… Steve. Steve America. No, that’s not right…” Joss’s voice faded as she tried valiantly to figure out what she was trying to say. 

“Joss, you are _not_ inconsequential.” 

“By next week, you probably won’t remember we even met. I’ll be back to obscurity, and you’ll be dating a Kardashian.” 

“I don’t even know what that is. And that’s not fair, to either one of us.” Bucky reminded himself that she was wasted on pain meds and didn’t know what she was saying. He couldn’t be mad at her, although he didn’t appreciate her implication. 

“ _Plus_ I let the President die. Am I on CNN yet? Does Anderson Cooper hate me? I _know_ those jackholes at Fox News hate me. I can just imagine what _they’re_ saying about me. But I feel bad if you don’t want to kiss me _and_ Anderson Cooper hates me.” 

__“I do want to kiss you, and I’m sure Anderson Cooper doesn’t hate you.”_ _

__“Do you think Rachel Maddow would take my calls? She seems cool. She might let me explain.”_ _

__Bucky laughed. “I’m sure she will.”_ _

Joss looked at him again. “ _Damn_ , you’re cute. You really want to kiss me?” 

__“Yes. I really do.”_ _

__“You’re humoring me because you crashed me in a plane.”_ _

__“A little. But I also think you’re cute, and I truly want to kiss you.”_ _

__“Then do it.”_ _

__“Not when you’re soused on painkillers.”_ _

__“See? You don’t want to. You’re all buff and supersoldiery and pretty and you’re too cool to even be in my hospital room. Why are you in here again?”_ _

__“Maybe we should watch TV.”_ _

__“OK. But not Anderson Cooper. He hates me.”_ _


	8. Simplest Thing In The World, Pal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natasha hide in a closet. A very small closet. Steve paces and worries, because Steve. Bucky gives him some advice. Sam and Anita role play for the cameras and it is definitely _not_ a family show.

You don’t last long as a spy without some pretty damn good hearing. Sure, Clint’s was now largely of the electronic variety, but that was a good thing; the hearing he was born with would not have picked up the almost nonexistent clues that someone was coming. A spy also needs good instincts, which is why Natasha had already scoped out the control room and knew that one of the doors from the larger space led to a small office, with an even smaller closet inside. So when Clint indicated that they needed to hide, she didn’t question him, just motioned him to follow.

It was a _very_ small closet.

Whoever the sixth guard was, he was impressively stealthy. Even though they knew he was there, Clint and Natasha had trouble hearing where he was in the control room. Luckily, a spy needs cool gadgets, and Natasha had placed a miniscule camera on top of a console in the control room, where it looked like nothing but a paper fastener. They were able to actually watch the intruder (well, technically _they_ were the intruders, but Natasha didn’t get too hung up on finding the right word) as he stalked them. It became obvious fairly soon that he was not positive there was anyone there. He knew there was someone in the complex, but his body language and the way he searched while keeping alert to the hallway told them that he didn’t know he’d cornered them. 

Natasha dimmed the screen on her viewer and huddled close to Clint so they could both see. Not that huddling was exactly optional, in a closet that wasn’t even technically a walk-in. The only way to stand was chest to chest, and Clint’s hands went naturally to Natasha’s hips as they put their heads together, check to cheek, to watch the little screen. In the cramped quarters, her free hand had nowhere to go but to rest on his shoulder. 

The guard sat down at a console and began searching through feeds from the cameras Natasha hadn’t disabled. He didn’t appear to be looking at recordings, he was using the cameras to search for the intruders all over the complex. That was a good thing; if he looked at recorded footage of this room, he’d find them in a matter of moments. They didn’t want to kill him; thus far the only evidence they’d left was some fairly wild stories about a brokenhearted redhead with seriously kick-ass weed, which hopefully wouldn’t trip Arias to the fact that they’d searched his underground building. There was no end to the dumbassery bored and unsupervised employees could get up to. But a body would be a definite clue that Arias needed to worry.

Five minutes into the guard’s search of camera feeds, Clint and Natasha started to feel fairly confident that he wasn’t going to search recordings, and didn’t know they were there. Which meant that they were just standing in the dark, in one another’s arms, waiting. Boredom, in this enclosed space, was not a good idea. Over the next few moments, Natasha became increasingly aware of the way Clint smelled; his very distinctive scent that she’d never smelled on any other man. She’d once tried to describe it to him, but could only explain that it was a clean scent with notes of freshly-cut wood and licorice. What she hadn’t told him was how deeply it affected her. Even now, she felt drawn to him, her body coming alive to the way he felt against her, having to fight to keep her eyes on the dim little screen.

Clint didn’t bother fighting. As soon as it became obvious that the guard hadn’t found them and wasn’t likely to, his attention drifted from the screen and began to focus on Natasha. He turned his head, nuzzling softly into her hair. If he made any effort to be subtle, it didn’t work, and he abandoned it quickly. His hands slid from her hips to the small of her back.

She looked up into his eyes, inches from her own and, silently, with a slight shake of her head and a beseeching look, tried to discourage him. He only lifted one side of his lips in a grin she knew only too well. 

“Don’t,” she mouthed softly.

His grin faded to something more carnal as he felt her shift position, not to distance them, but to fit their bodies more closely together. He didn’t look away. He held her gaze, allowing his love, and his attraction, to show freely in his face, challenging her to deny her own feelings. Like he always did. 

“I hate you,” she whispered.

She felt, more than heard, his gentle chuckle. “I know you do.”

She was the one who kissed him. He made sure that she always was. Her full lips softly captured his, sweet and familiar, yet somehow also forbidden, trembling with all that she suppressed. The sixth guard was entirely forgotten as their mouths moved against each other, her hand behind his neck unconsciously pressing him to her.

When she pulled away from the long kiss, eyes closed tight, Clint leaned forward, following her lips with his, trying to capture one last moment. But she looked down and away, so that only their foreheads touched. 

“I love you,” he sighed softly.

The ghost of a smile was all she could manage, incongruous though it was with the pain etched on her exquisite features. “I know you do.”

“How about we get rid of this prick and go home?”

Natasha glanced at the screen again, then looked up and simply nodded. Clint kissed her on the forehead and opened the closet door. 

When all was said and done, he did feel a _little_ guilty about putting the sixth guy naked in the bunk with guard number five. Still, it was amusing to imagine what stories they’d tell themselves when they awoke with no memory of how they’d ended up naked together. Clint supposed that, if he needed to, the sixth guy could tell himself he’d kicked the fifth out of bed. The point was, whatever they said to themselves or each other, it was very, very unlikely that they’d say anything to anyone else. 

*****

Steve stood looking out the windows of his hotel room at the sleeping city of Atlanta. It was late, and answers were coming way too slowly, which meant he should sleep now, while there was nothing he could do. He hated this part. He was lousy at waiting, always had been. But he was no scientist, and he was no Tony Stark. Right this minute, he felt completely useless: a finely-tuned, exquisitely-engineered fighting machine, with nothing and no one to fight. 

His phone rang, startling him with the insistent ring tone he’d apparently thought was a good idea at one time. He got a second shock when he saw who was calling. Instinctively standing at attention, he touched the screen. 

“Mr. President?”

“Steve, forgive me calling at this hour, I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No, Sir. I was awake.”

“I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

“Of course, Sir. How can I help?”

“Well, as you know, Adam Lattimore is going to be lying in state for forty-eight hours, starting tomorrow morning. I’ve been thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to have you and some of your team there, as inconspicuously as possible, just keeping an eye on things. We can’t know Adam wasn’t a target in this thing somehow.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. He didn’t think so. He also didn’t know why that would mean he needed to be protected now that he was dead. “Well, Sir, as you know, Director Coulson’s arranged to have S.H.I.E.L.D. agents there the entire time…”

“I know, I know, but I’d feel better if it was you.”

“I’m in Atlanta right now. And, really, Sir, that’s S.H.I.E.L.D’s area. They’re invisible. I’m kind of… not.”

“That’s what Phil Coulson’s telling me.”

“He’s right.”

President Burke’s sigh was profound enough that Steve realized he wasn’t the only one deeply concerned about whatever was happening. “Do you know anything? Phil’s got S.H.I.E.L.D. all over this thing, and I know Banner is holed up in New York working on it with some meteorological expert. Are you getting anywhere? I do not like the idea that some maniac’s out there with the capability to brew up storms like the one today.”

“Tony Stark’s working on something he found. He thinks he might be able to trace the source of the energy using, um… You know what? If I tried to explain it, I’d just get it hilariously wrong. That’s why you really want to talk to Sharon Carter about this. She understands it. I don’t.”

“I just got off the phone with her. And yes, she explained all that. To be honest, Steve, I’m just trying to keep the pressure on. By the way, how are Sergeant Barnes and Joss Emerson? I understand they’re at Emory. Are they getting what they need?”

“Yes, Sir. It’s a little hard to get Bucky to sit still for doctors, but Sharon helped with that. And with his healing capacity, he’ll be back to normal in a couple days. Agent Emerson needed surgery, but she’s stable and expected to make a full recovery. As I understand it, the only real problem is that Bucky won’t leave her side and he’s scaring the staff.” 

Steve heard the President laugh quietly. 

“I like the sound of that,” Burke said. “She’s one of mine. I know Fred Markoff likes to think the Secret Service reports to him, but when they’re protecting me and mine, I take it personally. And Joss is one of the best. She’s special. You tell Barnes if she needs anything, to let me know.”

“I’ll tell him, Sir.”

“Good. And keep me informed about these phenomena. Something about this, Steve…”

“I know, Sir. And we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“You do that. Good night, Captain.”

“Good night, Sir.”

Steve blew out his breath. Not really a phone call he’d needed right then. At least he’d gotten out of babysitting Lattimore’s body. That was something. He really didn’t think there was going to be any trouble at the Capitol; he doubted Lattimore had ever been a target. But Steve really did not fucking need the damn president calling him to ratchet up the pressure. He _knew_ they needed to figure out what was happening. And right now, Steve Rogers couldn’t do jack shit about it except wait and worry. 

This was probably one of those moments when Sharon would tell him that worrying was a waste of energy. She’d say that he should let the experts handle things and take care of himself until he was needed. But he had no idea how the hell to do that. Pacing in front of the hotel room windows wasn’t helping, but he knew for a fact he couldn’t sleep. He thought about Sharon. What would she tell him to do? 

Steve smiled to himself. Maybe she’d tell him to just lie back, like she had the other day. Just the thought of how deliciously shocked he’d been when she’d seduced him, and how unbelievably good she’d made him feel, had his body instantly on board with the idea of calling her room. But if he did, she’d think it was just what people now called a “booty call,” a concept he found distasteful. To his 1940’s sensibilities, it seemed utterly disrespectful, and Steve wasn’t willing to treat a woman like that. Especially not Sharon Carter.

_Especially_ not Sharon Carter. 

Because the thing was, by making the first move, she’d called his bluff. He’d pretended not to have any deep feelings for her, and to be interested in no more than laughs and a few kisses. He couldn’t even remember now why he’d thought she would be satisfied with that. He should have known a woman like Sharon wouldn’t be, and would ask for what she wanted. But then, he’d been trying to have it both ways. He wanted to be with her. He’d wanted that pretty much since they’d first met in the hallway of their apartment building, and his heated attraction had exploded into something much more serious when he discovered the courageous and brilliant S.H.I.E.L.D. agent she really was. His feelings for her had only grown with time and with all she’d shown herself to be. But Steve also knew he had nothing to offer her. He should never have started anything. And now… Now he knew she wanted him, too. Now she was on his mind constantly. Now part of the reason he couldn’t sleep was that she was just down the hall, beautiful and generous and with feelings for him that meant she’d open the door if he knocked. 

All he wanted was to knock. He shook with how much he wanted to knock on her door. But he couldn’t. He already felt way too much for her. 

Steve’s phone chirped.

**Bucky:**  
Hey, dumbass. You’re awake worrying, right? Bored. Call me.

Steve smiled at Bucky’s text. He marveled, as he always did, at the idea of the two of them texting each other at all. The boys they’d been would have thought texting was the coolest sort of spy tech. 

Bucky answered on the first ring with, “I hate hospitals. Tell me again what the hell I’m doin’ here?”

“Trying to make time with a pretty girl.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Is it working?”

“Eh. Yes and no. She tried to get me to kiss her.”

“Sounds like it’s working, then.”

“She was sauced on pain meds at the time.”

“That does explain why a woman like that would want to kiss _you_.” 

“Ha. Ha.”

“How are you doin’? How’s the ankle?”

“Better. Be good as new by tomorrow. Ribs still hurt.”

“How’s Joss?”

“Sleeping off the drugs. You shoulda seen her, Stevie. She was really in La La Land, said the cutest things. I think she likes me.”

“Yeah? What makes you think so?”

“She called me gorgeous and said she has a real thing for me. Hey, what’s a Kardashian?”

“They’re bad guys on Star Trek, I think. You haven’t gotten to the ones with them yet.”

Bucky’s voice went quiet and thoughtful. “Huh. Okay. Weird.” 

“So, how’d you know I was pacing and stewing?” Steve asked. 

“Known you a while, pal,” Steve could hear Bucky’s smirk through the phone.

“Actually, I was just standin’ here trying to figure out how not to do it, but I’m not havin’ any luck. I told you Sharon read me the riot act about it.”

“Think you just answered your own question, there.”

“How so?”

“Sharon, you meatball. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to take your mind off your troubles. And you’d be more than happy to let her. So what the hell are you standin’ there talkin’ to me for?”

“C’mon, Bucky, I’m not gonna call her at this hour. That would only mean one thing.”

“Uh-huh. And?”

“And you’re terrible! I’m not just gonna call her and say, ‘Hey, I’m having a hard time waiting for the eggheads to figure this thing out, why don’t you distract me?’ She’s better than that.”

“Except I think that’s exactly what she told you to do, isn’t it? And I, for one, heartily approve of a girl who would say something like that. Why don’t you lose the altar boy uniform, huh?”

“Stop it. You’re talking about her like she’s… Betty Simkins.”

“She _is_ Betty Simkins, Stevie. _All_ girls are Betty Simkins these days. You don’t hear me complainin’.”

“You always were a horndog.”

“Damn straight. You should try it, especially now that you’re not gonna snap like a twig if some girl wants to hug you.”

“For Pete’s sake, Buck.”

“All I’m sayin’ is, you worry too much. If a girl like Sharon wants to help you knock it off, then you’re a fool if you don’t let her. What is your problem with her, anyway? You like her, right?”

“’Course I do. A lot. But you know I can’t date anyone.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I never know when I’m gonna need to go running off to fight some freak with a cape who gives himself a scary nickname and tries to hurt people. And I never know if I’m comin’ back.”

“Which is exactly why you should be dating every chance you get. Besides, I’m the guy at your six, and you better believe _I’m_ not givin’ up girls.”

“You don’t think it’s… unfair? I mean, if she wants more than just a casual thing?”

“Does she?”

“She says she loves me.”

“What? She _said_ that? You really are a dumbass if she said she loves you and you’re alone in a hotel room talkin’ to me. I fear for your sanity, I really do. Even more than usual.”

“Yeah, yeah… I’m tryin’ to do the right thing here.”

“Well, try a little harder. Because there’s nothing unfair about being with a girl you really like, especially if she says she loves you. What’s unfair is treatin’ her like you _been_ treatin’ her. Like you don’t care.”

“I don’t know…”

“Then trust your Uncle Bucky. I got a lot more experience than you do. You like this girl, and you should. She’s great. I’m tellin’ ya’, just put on somethin’ nice and go down to her room, and see if you can’t talk her into a little horizontal polo. She deserves some attention, and you need to turn your damn fool brain off. Two birds, one stone.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Simplest thing in the world, pal.”

Steve sighed. “All right. Fine. I’ll call her and see if she’s awake. If she is, then… We’ll see.”

“Good man. Make me and Betty Simkins proud.”

Steve was chuckling as he pushed the “end” button on his phone. But it took him a while to find the courage to… Well, he didn’t find the courage to call Sharon. He texted her, instead.

**Steve Rogers:**  
Are you awake?

**Sharon Carter:**  
Hi. U OK?

**Steve Rogers:**  
Sure. Just having trouble sleeping. 

**Sharon Carter:**  
Want some company?

Steve smiled. Of course Sharon would be generous and direct. For a guy with as many hang-ups as Steve had, the fact that Sharon just spoke her mind was yet another thing he found wildly attractive about her. It reminded him of Peggy. He’d liked that about Peggy, too.

**Steve Rogers:**  
It’s not too late?

**Sharon Carter:**  
Not if you’re stressing about this energy thing like I think you are. 

**Steve Rogers:**  
Trying not to. Seems to be what I do best.

**Sharon Carter:**  
No, it isn’t. 😊 Come on down. I’m in 1245.

_Huh._ Apparently she wasn’t too troubled by the booty call thing. 

*****

Anita had masterfully bobbed and weaved all afternoon and evening. So far, although Arias seemed to think things were going very well between them, he’d only managed to kiss her on the hand, the cheek, and the side of her head. The amount of stroking of her arms, hair, back, and hips would have gotten another guy at least a withering verbal takedown, if not a semi-permanent groin injury, but she was holding herself in check because she had learned some very interesting things about Jarman Arias. 

She needed to talk to Sam.

At one am., Sam wandered out to the beach, apparently a little the worse for drink and with a bikini-clad woman on each arm. He saw Anita trying to fend off a particularly egregious pass from Arias, and excused himself from his new friends for a moment.

“Hey, Baby, I haven’t seen you for a while. You doin’ all right?”

“I’m A-OK, Sam. You?”

_Oh. That was the signal. Guess it’s time._ “Well, I _would_ like to talk to you for a minute.”

“Well…” Anita looked slyly at Arias. “It’s not a particularly good time, right this minute. Can it wait?”

“No, Anita, it fucking well _can’t_ wait. Excuse us, _Señor Arias_. I’d like to talk to my _girlfriend_ for a minute.”

Arias smiled smugly. “Of course, Sam. Is that all right with you, _princesa_?”

“I’ll just be a minute,” she purred, moving away as though it was the last thing she wanted to do.

Sam walked Anita several feet until they were standing in the wet sand, where the edge of a wave occasionally reached their toes. 

“You ready?”

“There are no words for how ready I am. And I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I’ve done pretty well, myself.” Sam lifted his chin a fraction of an inch and raised his voice. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sam, just relax, OK, Baby?” Anita matched his volume. “You made some friends, it looks like. This is what we-“

Sam leaned in toward Anita and spoke softly, as though angrily. “This is me saying something really rude.”

“ _What_ did you just say to me?” Anita shrieked. 

“You heard me.” Sam now leaned back and crossed his arms.

“C’mon, Sammy… Don’t be like that. You know I love you. I’m just havin’ a little fun! You go ahead, you have fun, too. We said this was a free weekend, didn’t we?”

For the next five minutes, Sam and Anita argued while Arias watched, amused. Their fight began at a fairly low level, but developed into one of those drunken, all-out lovers’ spats that Sam had promised himself long ago he’d never be part of, at least for real. Right now, he was actually enjoying it quite a bit. When Anita began to push and shove at Sam and their voices raised to the level that others on the beach began to notice, Arias walked over, greasy smile fully deployed. 

“Oh, now, Sam, you’re hurting my guests’ feelings,” he said, indicating the two women who’d come out to the beach with Sam. Neither looked particularly pleased. “Why spend time on unpleasantness when you could be having a very pleasant time with these ladies?”

Sam turned a fierce scowl on him. “I _know_ you ain’t tryna tell me how to talk to my woman.”

“Sam, _mira_ -“

“Yeah. ‘Course you are. You been all over her all day,” Sam slurred, having just a bit of trouble keeping his footing on the sand. 

“Sammy, please…” Anita whined.

“Nuh-uh. You got a choice here, Anita. You best _decide_.”

With that, he turned and began to stalk in a slightly crooked line back to the villa. Anita, her eyes full of distress, looked from him to Arias and back. With a little cry, she began to run after Sam. 

“Sammy, _wait_! Please, Baby, don’t be like that!”

Arias watched, his amusement gone for the moment, until he realized his good fortune. “Well, ladies, it seems we’ve been deserted. Won’t you join me for a nightcap?”

The two women who had come down to the beach with Sam didn’t hesitate to stroll back up the sand with Arias.

It occurred to Sam that, since their room was being watched, he and Anita were going to have to figure out how to end their argument in a somewhat believable way. He needn’t have worried. Anita never broke character, grabbing needily onto his arm as she reached him on the wide patio and begging him tipsily to forgive her. He remained stonily silent until they got to their room, where he finally turned to her. When he did, what he saw in her eyes knocked his brain instantly and completely offline.

“I’m sorry, Baby,” she purred, placing her body against his and putting her arms around his neck. She was panting, and clearly not from the walk up from the beach. “I love you. Only you.” She kissed him then, mouth open and hotly demanding. “C’mon, Sammy, let me make it up to you.”

Sure, Sam had done a little role playing in his time, but this was a new one. He wanted to think it through, decide whether this might mean for him and Anita in the real world. He liked her. He wanted to date her, get to know her. And this would be the first time they had sex. Even if it wasn’t, under normal circumstances, he’d never engage in something like this without a very frank discussion beforehand. Boundaries. Maybe even a safe word. But Anita was committed, and she didn’t seem in the least concerned about the cameras. In fact, Sam wondered if the idea that they were likely being watched wasn’t a little bit of a turn on for her. Like it was for him.

“You let him touch you.” He growled, looking down at her and remaining rigid, not putting his arms around her. 

“I know, Baby,” she said, kissing him some more and rubbing her body against his. “He’s rich. He’s important. And I thought you and me had an agreement. But if you’re not OK with it, then I won’t do it, Baby. I’m here. I’m here with you, Hmmm?”

She slid her hands from his neck to his collarbones and over to his shoulders, pushing his shirt down his arms and letting it fall to the floor. Now he did the same, pushing her lacy cover-up off. She reached up to untie the top of her red bikini while he untied the straps on her back, keeping his eyes on hers the entire time. 

“You forgive me, Baby? Will you let me make it up to you?” She asked, taking a small step backwards to let the top fall from her and give him the opportunity to fill his eyes with her full breasts. Then he filled his hands with them.

“You let him touch you here?” He asked, keeping that cruel edge to his voice and on his face as he cupped her and dragged his thumbs across her erect, brown nipples. 

She sucked in her breath. “No. Only you, Sam.” 

“Damn right, only me. Now take those bottoms off and lay down.”

_Oh, shit. No turning back now._ Sam was _way_ into this all of a sudden. The fire in Anita’s eyes and the shudder in her breathing told him he wasn’t alone. She was very quickly naked and lying in the center of the bed, panting and looking at him with a hunger he could see even in the darkness of the room lit only by the flickering light from the patio torches outside. He took his time dropping his shorts and stood for a moment, desire coiling in his belly as he watched her eyeing his cock, already fully hard.

He knelt on the bed and crawled to her, coming to rest with his weight on his knees between her legs and his hands on either side of her shoulders, not touching her. She was panting and the slightest sheen of sweat glowed on her face. 

“You made me mad, Anita.”

“I’m sorry, Sam. Please…”

“You know what I gotta do, don’t you.”

She took in a shuddering gasp and nodded, eyes wide, as he pushed her legs further apart with his knees, leaning down until the tip of his cock was at her entrance, which he noticed was wet as _hell_. There was no foreplay, no warning, unless the last three days could be counted as extended foreplay, which Sam suddenly realized they pretty much had been. He shoved roughly into her, both of them crying out as he did. 

“You’re a fucking _bad girl_ , Anita.”

“I am,” she grunted. “I am. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Sam!”

“Whose are you, huh? Who do you belong to?”

“You! I belong to you. Only you!”

“Anybody else get to fuck you?”

“No! Just you!”

“Who else gets this pussy?”

“Nobody, Sam. I belong to you. I’m yours… _Fuck_!”

“Anybody else get to make you come?”

“Just you, Sam!”

He kept up an intense rhythm, pounding brutally into her, feeling her pulling at him and pushing up to him with her feet on the mattress, letting him know she was into what he was doing. 

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Anita. Makes me crazy, thinkin’ about that fat fuck puttin’ his hands on you. You’re _mine_. Say it! You’re mine!”

“I’m yours! Yes, I’m- I’m yours, only yours!”

Sam began to kiss her roughly, invading her mouth with his tongue. He hoped his uncontrolled lust looked, to the cameras, like the anger and possessiveness he was supposed to be feeling. “Fuckin’ _mine_ , Anita. All of you, _mine_.” 

He continued to kiss her roughly, moving his mouth down her neck, not caring whether he was leaving marks and kind of hoping he was. He had to pull out of her to move lower, and also to keep himself from coming already, the way she was fucking him as hard as he was fucking her. He devoured her body with harsh kisses and nips, actually growling from time to time in his blind need. Her groans, the way she kept pushing up toward his mouth, reassured him that she was as into this as he was. 

When he entered her with two fingers, she ground down onto them and threw her arms up over her head, abandoning herself completely to him. He was a little ashamed of the teeth marks he left on her hip on that one, but only for the briefest of moments. When he kissed and licked his way to her mound, he looked up to see her watching him, her face a mask of purest wanton desire. 

“Say it.”

“I’m yours. Yours,” she breathed.

“Anybody else get to eat this pussy?”

“Nobody. Only you, Baby.”

Sam went to work with his tongue, keeping up a sure, steady rhythm with his fingers as he teased the hard nub of her clit. As he licked and sucked at her, moaning and murmuring filthy praise, Anita hissed a stream of overwrought words of pleasure in Spanish, grinding herself against his mouth. He had to keep from rubbing his leaking cock against the mattress, listening to the animal sounds she made. Many steamy, groan-filled minutes later, Sam began to feel her muscles tensing, and knew that she was close.

Without warning, he bent his knees and pushed up, putting his arms under her and rolling them over so that she was sprawled atop him. 

“You want to come, Baby?”

“Fuck yeah, Sam. _Please_.”

“I want you to come on my cock. Show me you’re mine. Let me see you come on my cock so I know it’s me you love. Can you do that?”

“Oh, yeah. I can do that for you. I want to do that for you.” She put her knees on the mattress, putting her weight on them and using her thighs to lift and lower herself on him. Reaching down, she began to finger herself, looking at Sam the whole time. “Like this, Baby? This what you want?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Shit, Baby, you look so fuckin’ good right now, you have no idea. You’re so beautiful…”

“And I’m yours, Sam. I’m all yours. I’m… oh, shit…”

“Come for me, Baby. C’mon. Show me who you belong to-“

Anita tried to keep her eyes on Sam’s, but as she moved more and more wantonly against him, rubbing herself faster and faster, they squeezed shut and she threw her head back. “Oh, _fuck_ , Sam! Fuck, your dick is so good-“ With that, she gave a series of hard shivers and shouted through gritted teeth as she rode was felt to Sam to be a powerful orgasm. As she spasmed around him, Sam gave himself over to the sensations, bucking up into her until he, too, came with a cry loud enough to wake the rest of the house, had anyone been sober, or sleeping. Of course, no one was.


	9. Captain America Has Clocked Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve makes a booty call. Bruce has two kinds of hangover. Sam and Anita have an "about last night" conversation. Natasha tries to apologize to Clint.

Steve took Bucky’s advice and put on a fresh shirt. In fact, he took a quick shower and _then_ put on a fresh shirt. He really shouldn’t have been so nervous, given what had happened between him and Sharon just the other day. Then again, he thought, maybe that’s _why_ he was so nervous. Things were different now. 

Sharon answered the door in a well-worn Case Western Reserve T-shirt and a soft-looking pair of flannel shorts. Unlike Steve, she didn’t seem at all nervous, just happy to see him. Maybe the slightest bit amused. Something about the way she smiled at him, moving to the side to let him into her softly lit room, instantly calmed him. 

Steve looked around, noting the bedding thrown back, and the glasses and open book sitting face-down on the bedside table. He stood uncertainly, running a hand through his hair. 

“This is so rude. You were in bed…”

“Steve?” Sharon smiled up at him from a foot away. 

“Huh?”

“I’m glad you’re here. I invited you, remember? It’s OK. C’mon.” She tossed her head toward the bed and climbed in. There was nothing sexual about the way she sat cross-legged with her back against the headboard and pulled the blankets up around her, making herself comfortable. She held out a hand to him. “Just come sit by me. We can talk.”

“I’m a hopeless fossil, aren’t I?”

She actually laughed at that. “It’s sweet. You’re sweet. Don’t apologize for that.”

She looked so good sitting there, so comfortable and welcoming, that he sat down on the side of the bed, his thigh just touching her knees. 

“So. What’s on your mind, Captain America?”

“Not much. The safety of the world. Somebody who can apparently create a damn tornado or a hurricane. My best friend bein’ in a plane crash today. That kinda thing.” 

“Hmmm. Is that all. Seems like you should be able to sleep like a baby, then. What a wimp.”

Steve huffed a small laugh, and Sharon took his hand. 

“Bucky’s OK, right?”

“Bucky’s fine. Staying at the hospital with Joss.”

“And she’s OK?”

“Stable. She’ll be all right. I talked to him a little while ago, she was sleeping. Probably to keep him from yelling at her any more. He said he was kinda hard on her for scaring him.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” she said, cocking an eyebrow and grinning. He grinned back.

“President Burke called me. Wanted the Avengers to keep watch at the Capitol while Lattimore lies in state.”

“You didn’t agree to that, did you?”

“No. There’s no reason. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s gonna be there, and I don’t even think _that’s_ necessary.”

“Agreed. He take it OK?”

“Yeah. He said he talked to you.”

“He did. I think he’s under the impression that he can just order us to figure this out, and that’ll make it happen.”

“I think you’re right.”

Sharing quiet laughter with Sharon in the soft light, Steve relaxed a little more. 

“I talked to Dr. Banner earlier,” Sharon told him. “They’re both moving toward answers. They’ve hit the wall, though, so they’re gonna get some sleep. I tried to check in with Stark, but he mumbled something about being in the zone and hung up on me. I’m taking that as good news.”

“You should. The closer he gets to figuring something out, the ruder he gets.”

Sharon looked like she was about to say something else about Tony, but let it go. “And Sam and Anita Herrera?”

“Had a text from Sam. He said they were making progress, but that was all he said.”

“Yeah, about that. Next time a mission requires someone to party at a villa in the tropics, do you think we could get assigned to that instead of plane crash and President detail? Because I’m thinking there’s a definite fun disparity here.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I like the idea of you going all Mata Hari in a bikini.”

“Right?” She laughed.

“Natasha called,” Steve said. “They’re on their way back from Arias’s underground place, and she said they’re bringing a lot back. We’re gonna be busy.”

“Well, then. Sounds like there’s a lot of progress happening. I think maybe the world will be OK if you call it a day.”

“Well, that’s kind of the problem. I don’t seem to know how to do that. Just turn it off.” He reached behind his neck with the hand that wasn’t holding hers and rubbed his tired shoulder muscles, rolling his head. 

Sharon cocked her head. “Hey. I have an idea.” 

She scooted back and uncrossed her legs, rising to her knees, then knee-walked to a position behind him. With sure hands, she pulled his shirt untucked from his jeans and lifted it. He obediently lifted his arms to let her pull it over his head, setting it beside him on the bed before gripping the muscles on either side of his neck and squeezing.

“Good God, Steve. There are statues with less tension in their shoulders.” 

He chuckled and hung his head, letting her work. She seemed to know what she was doing. Although she was grasping and kneading his muscles hard, it felt good. She used her thumbs to press into his neck, working the muscles there until he groaned, turning his head to work out the kinks. Then she moved to his upper back, using the heels of her hands and her elbow, digging at the knots there. 

“I can’t decide whether that hurts more than it feels good.” 

“Good. Then I’m doing it right.”

A few moments later, Steve said, “I think Banner-“

“Nope,” Sharon interrupted him. “You’re done for today. Captain America’s clocked out. You can talk about anything but work.”

“Seriously?”

“Absolutely. My room, my rules.”

“Huh. I’m learning a lot about you lately. You have a definite bossy side.”

She chuckled and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Lucky for you. Because you definitely need some bossing around, Steve Rogers.”

Sharon worked on kneading the tension from Steve’s neck and shoulders for another half hour, while they enjoyed a companionable silence, punctuated by occasional comments or quiet conversation. When she decided he’d had enough, she stretched her legs out on either side of Steve’s hips and wrapped herself around him, enjoying the feel of his hard abdomen under her hands. She placed her chin on his shoulder and squeezed him. 

“There. That’s at least a little better.”

“That was great. Thank you. How do you know how to do that? I know an expert when I, uh, feel one.”

“Took a class once, trying to impress an old boyfriend.”

“Did it work?”

“I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

Steve smiled. “Lucky for me.”

“Yeah. Come to think of it, you are pretty damn lucky,” she agreed laughingly.

“Yes. I am. I feel like I owe you an apology, Sharon. Bucky told me I treat you badly.”

“He did? Why?”

“Because I…” Even though they were sitting intimately together, with her legs wrapped around him and her chin on his shoulder, Steve felt like facing away from her gave him a little emotional safety to risk speaking this out loud. He tried again. “Because I’ve been acting like I don’t have feelings for you. And it’s not true.”

Sharon didn’t say anything for a moment, just held him. 

“Well, then,” she finally whispered. “You should probably kiss me or something.”

He turned his head and she stretched her neck to reach his lips with hers. It was a ridiculously awkward position for attempting to kiss, and they both laughed before Steve turned his hips within the circle of her legs, lifting her closest leg to rest on his, which allowed him to pull her around his body until she was sitting on his lap, now facing him. 

“OK, I gotta admit, _that’s_ fairly hot.”

“What is?”

“The way you can just lift me and move me around like it’s nothing.”

“Only fairly hot, huh?”

“Hmmm. You’re right. It’s actually hot as fuck. Now, why don’t you tell me more about these feelings you have for me?”

Blushing a bit, Steve grinned mischievously. “Like I told the President, you’re the brains around here. I’m no good with words. I’m more… physical.”

“Oh.” Sharon breathed as Steve leaned toward her. 

He began by kissing her softly, tenderly, trying to show her what he felt. He still wasn’t sure this was right; he still feared that he couldn’t give her what she needed and deserved. But the very things that he liked about her – her intelligence, her independence, her capability – argued that he should trust her to know what she wanted. She held a crucial role at S.H.I.E.L.D. Which meant she knew _exactly_ what his role was, and what his life was like. He needed to stop second-guessing her. 

And he wanted to. He wanted to let go, and just enjoy his feelings for this incredible woman. Nurture them. And let her love him back.

Without consciously intending to, Steve had bunched her T-shirt in one hand and was stroking the bare skin of her back, feeling her lean into his hand. Suddenly, he felt a hunger to feel more, much more, of her soft skin against his. He pulled up on the wad of material in his hand, and Sharon instantly lifted up her arms, helping him as much as she could. With her T-shirt no longer between them, Steve laid down and pulled her with him, so that she was straddling him and their chests crushed together.

His kisses were no longer gentle. He buried his fingers in her hair, clutching a handful as he teased her tongue with his to make her moan softly in the way he was already starting to love. Even though she was on top of him, he was entirely in control of the way they moved together, lifting his hips into her and pressing her to him. He slid his hand under the waistband of her shorts to cup her bare ass, dragging her against him while he ravaged her mouth.

He needed to get his damn jeans off. He was so hard, and grinding against her like that was only making it worse. So he lowered his hand from her hair to her back and sat up, then stood with her in his arms and laid her on the bed. She gasped as, almost in the same motion, he swept her shorts and panties down her legs and off. She sat up to help him unfasten his jeans and tug them down his hips. They were actually more in each other’s way than particularly coordinated about it, but both were far beyond thinking clearly. The second Steve had kicked free of his shoes and his jeans fell to the floor, he was poised above Sharon, kissing her as though they’d been apart for years. She pulled him down onto her.

“I’m gonna crush you,” Steve objected.

“I don’t care, I want to feel your skin. You feel _so good_.”

For a long time, they reveled in maximum skin contact and invasive kisses, communicating in murmurs and groans. Eventually, Steve began to kiss down Sharon’s neck, taking in deep lungfuls of the sweet, flowery scent of her. 

“I swear, Sharon, I just wanted to see you,” he said between kisses. “I didn’t expect anything.”

Steve could hear the smile in Sharon’s voice when she said, “You’re adorable, Steve.”

He wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by that, but at least it seemed like she was OK with what was happening. Anyway, he quickly became distracted as he kissed his way down to her breasts which, he had learned to his enchantment, were very sensitive. She squirmed as his lips approached her nipple, her moans making clear what she wanted. He thought about slowing down, drawing out her anticipation, but he couldn’t. He wanted his mouth on her as much as she did. 

She cried out as his tongue met the peak of her hard nipple, Steve moaning with pleasure at the same time. Her whole body arched and writhed. She threw her head back, calling his name breathlessly.

“So damn beautiful,” he murmured between swirls of his tongue. 

He wondered… Her reaction to his stroking, licking and nibbling at her breasts was so profound, he wondered just how much she felt. So he let the fingers that were toying with one nipple slide down her chest to her stomach, past the carefully-manicured thatch of hair, and felt the hot slickness as he reached her lower lips. She groaned, low in her chest. He thought he might be right.

“You feel so good,” he murmured, sliding a fingertip between her lips, opening her folds. “You’re so wet, does that mean you want me as much as I want you?”

“Oh, you have no idea how much I want you, Steve. I… You… Oh, _fuck_!” She cried as he entered her with one finger, nibbling at her nipple just a bit harder now. He used his thumb to lightly tease her clit as he fingered her, still pleasuring her breast with his lips and tongue. She had already been rocking her pelvis against him, but now she began to fuck his finger with determination. Her eyes were screwed closed and her mouth open, panting and moaning. When he inserted a second finger, continuing to slide his thumb across her clit, he learned that he’d been right. She cried out, pressing her breast up against his mouth and stiffening with the first spasms of a violent orgasm that rocked her entire body. It seemed to go on forever, making Steve feel spectacularly proud of himself. He’d never seen a woman whose breasts were so sensitive that it took little more than stimulating them to make her come. For some reason, he found that incredibly sexy.

Steve gave Sharon a few minutes after her body was done convulsing, just kissing randomly up her body until he reached her lips. She pulled him down on her again, kissing him messily and hard. “I want to make you come like that,” she practically growled. “Tell me what to do to make you come like that.”

“Trust me, I will.”

“No. Tell me. Tell me what you like. Tell me what makes the top of your head blow off.”

“Well, I like, um…” He couldn’t make himself say it out loud, so he sat up, on his knees, and pulled her to a sitting position. “Turn around,” he whispered throatily and, when she was on her knees facing away from him, put an arm around her waist. 

Then he pushed her thighs apart with his, so that she was straddling him backwards. She groaned “Oh, fuck,” when she got the idea, and felt him lift up her hips and pull her against his chest. She used her legs to help him lower her onto him, and cried out with the deep penetration.

“Are you OK? Is this too much?” He asked quickly.

“Oh, fuck, no,” she gasped, beginning to move on his cock. “Holy - Steve, this is…”

“I know. Oh, _fuck_ , you feel good,” he grunted, able to use his hands to fondle her breasts while she held on with one hand behind his neck and the other on his bicep. “Sharon… Holy fuck…”

She set a fast, rough rhythm, using her thighs to lift herself, then letting herself fall onto him with all her weight, crying out each time. He was close. He didn’t know any position that let him bury himself as deeply, and it left her entire body exposed to his hands as she fucked him more and more fiercely. And then she leaned forward onto her hands, still impaled on him and with her hips in his hands, which let him set the rhythm, pulling her onto him and thrusting up into her. It took only a few thrusts before he was completely overwhelmed by a blast of pleasure that ripped a broken, inarticulate roar from him, wracking him with spasms of soul-deep sensation that left him utterly unable to form thoughts or words. She’d said she wanted to make him come like she had, and he thought she might actually have overdelivered on that promise a little. He pumped and bucked until he was completely spent, gasping for breath. 

When he recovered enough that he could, he raised up and scooped his arms under her, flopping down on his side with her curled up against the length of him. 

“That was…” He buried his face in her hair. “You’re incredible. That was incredible.”

She chuckled sleepily against him. “I’m very, _very_ glad you came to see me.”

“Me, too. And now you know how I feel about you.”

“Wow. If that was you telling me how you feel, you really like me.”

“I really do.”

She turned in his arms then, so that she could face him and put her arms around him, too. “I want you to stay here with me tonight.”

Steve just smiled and pulled her to him.

*****

After only a few hours of sleep, Bruce was already awake again, staring at his ceiling and planning the tests he would need to run once he got his core samples from Zambia. He was surprised to hear a knock on his door, but he wasn’t surprised when Friday told him it was Catherine. Of course, she would be awakened by her restless brain, too. 

As he rose, he discovered he had a massive headache, but he couldn’t regret the wine. It had allowed him to have one of the most gratifying conversations he’d had in a long time. Right up until he’d fucked the whole thing up by making a tactless, ham-handed pass at her. He was almost glad for his pounding head and the atrocious taste in his mouth, because it let him focus on something besides his shame.

As they rode to Catherine’s lab in the back of a taxi, sitting a careful distance apart, he was quiet even for Bruce. She noticed.

“Are you OK?” She asked, looking fully at him. Her tone conveyed exactly what she was talking about. They always had been able to read each other.

“I owe you an apology. I’m sorry, and I’m embarrassed.”

“I’m not exactly sure which part you’re apologizing for,” she responded softly. “Are you sorry for feeling the same way I feel, or for being clear and honest about what you need in order to be OK?”

He closed his eyes and huffed a small sigh. “You always did treat me better than I deserve.”

“And you always were a self-flagellating arse. Apology unnecessary, but accepted.”

They shared a glance and a small, sad grin.

Once in Catherine’s lab, they worked diligently. She began almost frantically entering data into her modeling system. He called Phil Coulson, asking him to do whatever it took to get him the core samples he needed to test his theory about the earthquake. Coulson, who enjoyed a challenge and kind of loved the idea that he could make pretty much anything happen when he needed to, assured Bruce he’d have the samples within forty-eight hours. 

By the end of the day, Bruce and Catherine were standing side by side, watching a recreation of the tornado that had hit Washington, D.C. with stunned, deeply concerned expressions. _So that’s how they’d done it. And they could do it whenever, and wherever, they liked._

*****

Arias apparently had unlimited hot water at his villa, because Sam and Anita had been in the shower for a very long time. He’d tried not to waken her as he slid out of bed, given that he’d only given her the chance to get about two hours of sleep. So he’d been surprised when she’d come around the rough rock wall that separated the huge shower from the rest of the bathroom. Her smile, though, told him immediately that she wasn’t sorry to be awake. Her kisses reinforced the point.

“I think we should talk about what happened,” he said, forehead-to-forehead with her and holding her close. “Since we don’t have an audience in here.”

A flicker of doubt crossed her face. “OK. Are you regretting it?”

“I don’t regret one second,” he answered, kissing her quickly to reassure her of that, at least. “Ain’t gonna, unless you tell me that you do.”

“I absolutely do _not_. In the cold light of day, I maybe feel a little awkward about the… dramatics. But I thought that would convince Arias of our cover, if they’re watching. Maybe give me a little window to get close to him again.”

“I agree. You were… very convincing.”

“The other part is, I wanted you. I watched you all day, strutting around with that body, and charming everyone, and I wanted you. And then, when we got back here and I started playing, and you were down… Sam, that was the hottest thing that’s happened to me in a very long time.”

“Same here. So… we’re good?”

“We’re so good.”

Which led, inevitably, to a lengthy interval where they didn’t talk much at all.

It wasn’t until they’d recovered their breaths and were soaping each other’s bodies and hair that they began to discuss their discoveries about Arias and formulate a plan for the day.

*****

Clint was outside doing yoga on the landing platform in the streaming sunshine when Natasha came out to join him. She was cradling a huge cup of coffee that steamed in the cool air. Although they smiled and nodded to one another, Clint didn’t stop his moves and Natasha simply leaned against the building and watched him for long enough that she finished most of her coffee before either of them spoke.

She loved everything about his body. His sculpted arms and shoulders, hard from use and gleaming just a bit with the morning sun on the light patina of perspiration he’d worked up. The masterful way he controlled every movement, strong and sure. The well-defined muscles of his legs, balancing and supporting him in every position without any apparent effort. 

She hadn’t slept. She couldn’t. All she could think about were his eyes as he’d held her and looked into hers. The feel of his lips on hers, and his hands, heavy and possessive on her hips. How desperately she wanted him, and how good they were together. 

How wrong it was.

What had happened at the underground facility the night before had proved to Natasha, once again, that being here, together, was trying to hold back the tide. Clint said a lot of sappy, poetic things about their being soulmates and belonging together, which she uniformly mocked because she needed them not to be true. But they were. In spite of everything she knew, everything she’d been taught by the Red Room and through bitter, bloody experience, she shared an unshakable bond with this man in front of her. It made her weak. It made her vulnerable. She was deeply in love with Clint Barton and it drove her a little bit more insane every day. All of which Clint knew as well as Natasha did.

Clint took a pose in which he was facing her. As he held it, Natasha asked, “So, rounding to the nearest ten, how many times have you cursed my name since we said good night?”

“Zero, Tasha. You know better than that.”

“I deserve it. I should never have kissed you. I let you think that things could be different. I saw the look on your face when I went back to my own room. I wouldn’t blame you for hating me.”

“I don’t hate you. I’m a big boy, give me a little credit, would you?”

“Yeah, you’re right. That wasn’t fair. I suck at apologies.”

“You don’t owe me an apology.” He changed position slightly.

“Yes, I do. And I’m sorry. Again. I keep telling myself that I’m a grown-ass woman who knows her own mind, that I’m capable of an adult friendship with you without getting all wrapped around the axle about… things. But maybe that’s just another false identity.” 

“Stop it, all right? Don’t punish yourself because _I_ couldn’t keep my hands off you. I understand what you need here, and I accept it. We knew it would be hard staying here, staying friends. But we agreed it’s worth it because neither one of us could live with the alternative. So sometimes we backslide. The world keeps on spinning.”

Natasha just let that go. What else could she do? She drank the last few swallows of her coffee and tried for a businesslike tone as she said, “Cap called. He wants a meeting here in three days. Everybody there, ready to share what we’ve found. We’re gonna need to go through everything we got, see what sense we can make of it. Then we’ll need to meet with Bruce and Dr. Mulready, give them all the stuff on that machine. I’ve already sent it to Tony, although he says he won’t be able to get to it for a while.”

“You’ve been busy this morning.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Figured I might as well do some work.”

Clint stood from his last pose and picked up a towel lying nearby, using it to blot his face. “Let me get a shower. I’ll meet you in the conference room in half an hour.”

“Right,” Natasha said, holding her cup up to him in a halfhearted toast before disappearing back into the building. Clint stood looking at the door for a long time after she was gone.


	10. That Opium Den Aesthetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is concerned when Joss wants to peace out. Catherine learns about Bruce's little problem. Sam can flirt with anyone, and he does.

It had been two days since the Quinjet crash, and although Bucky’s ribs weren’t entirely back to normal, his ankle was, and he’d be fully healed in another day or two. Bucky wasn’t the problem. Joss was. 

She’d been wanting out of the hospital since the morning after the crash, as though major trauma surgery was some sort of drive-through event. She resisted anyone’s attempts to examine her incision and refused to take any pain medicine, insisting she didn’t need it. Bucky had to use every trick in his extensive repertoire to get her even to agree to a blood draw to check how she was recovering from her significant blood loss. She’d demanded to have her IV removed, in the end negotiating hard with her doctor, who’d eventually agreed to take it out if she would drink a specific amount of fluid every hour. Any less, and it would go back in. Bucky had seen bad patients. Hell, he _was_ one. This was something different. 

Joss’s second morning in the hospital started off well. She’d insisted that Bucky go to the hotel where the rest of the team was staying and get a good night’s sleep rather than dozing in a hard chair at her bedside, so when he arrived in the morning, they both felt good. With an impish smirk, he set a silver gift bag tied with a red ribbon on her overbed table before leaning down to kiss her on the top of her head. Her hair, loose and shiny where it fanned out on her pillow, smelled fresh and clean after the shower she’d already had that morning. She looked refreshed and infinitely better than when she’d been admitted; in fact, he discovered that what he had thought were bruises on her face and arms must have actually been leftover mud from the crash, and were gone now. 

“What’s that?” She asked, indicating the bag.

“It’s a get well present for you. Open it.”

With a smile of childlike anticipation, Joss reached for the bag and put her hand in, pulling out a soft, tissue-wrapped bundle. There was a split second after she removed the tissue when Bucky watched her struggle not to react, but she lost the battle the moment she shifted her eyes to him and saw the shit-eating grin he wore. 

“Damn it, Barnes,” she muttered, but she was laughing too hard for the words to have any bite.

The sleep pants were made of a soft flannel so fuzzy that she couldn’t resist rubbing it against her face, despite the fact that splashed all over the fabric was a small cartoon version of Bucky. The pajama top was basically a T-shirt, with a left sleeve decorated to look like Bucky’s arm, red star and all, and the same cartoon picture of Bucky emblazoned on the front. 

She did her best to give him a murderous look, but it wasn’t very effective given her laughter and the adorable pink flush in her cheeks. Abandoning even the pretense that she wasn’t charmed, she got up and went into the bathroom, holding her hospital gown tightly behind her the whole way, to put them on. Bucky wasn’t sure how he felt about being a cartoon figure on pajamas, but he’d figured Joss was the kind of girl who could take a joke, and her reaction to his gift was even better than he’d hoped. 

He was pleasantly surprised to see how well she was moving around, especially for only the second day after surgery. She was clearly in excellent shape, but abdominal surgery was abdominal surgery. It took some time to recover from. Still, he didn’t spend much energy worrying about it. 

There was something captivating about the way Joss looked when she emerged wearing a top with Bucky’s cartoon image on it. She also looked much more comfortable in pajamas than in a hospital gown. She was smiling widely as she climbed back into the bed, with only a minor amount of guarding of her left side. “Would it ruin your joke if I actually think these are kind of awesome?”

“Not at all. I was just hoping you didn’t already have them,” he needled. 

She tried another glare at that, with about as much success as her previous attempt. She shook her head as she said, “Laugh all you want. I ain’t even mad, because these are super comfy, and anything beats the hell out of a hospital gown. So thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Still, next time we’re in a plane crash, can I have Hawkeye ones?”

Bucky’s laugh escaped before he could stop it. He didn’t want to seem to encourage her, but he really liked the fact that she was such a wiseass. “We’ll see. Anyway, you look great in those. And I can’t believe how well you’re moving around.”

“Yeah, I feel fine. Arm doesn’t hurt at all. My side hurts some, but not even enough to need any pain medicine.” She frowned. “I want out of here.”

“C’mon, it’s only the second day. You can’t be ready to go home yet. We gonna have this problem again today?”

All humor had left her expression suddenly. “I kind of wanted to talk to you about that.”

“What?” He asked, turning his chair a little so he could face her more directly, leaning his elbows on the bed. That meant his hands settled naturally on her lower leg.

“Bucky, I… I have to get out of here. I’m leaving today. And I just wanted to, um… say thank you. For everything. Maybe not for the plane crash, but that wasn’t _entirely_ your fault, and you did get me out-“

He completely ignored her attempts to joke. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

“I’m leaving here today. I need to get home.”

“You just had surgery! You’re-“

“Please,” she said, leaning toward him and putting her hands over his where they lay on her leg. “Just let me say this.”

“Joss-“

“I can’t explain. So don’t ask me to. I just didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. I don’t suppose I’ll see you again, and I wanted to tell you that, you know, tornado and plane crash notwithstanding, I’ve really loved getting to spend time with you.”

Bucky had known Joss for about four days. He didn’t claim to know her well. But he’d always been pretty good at reading people, and over a life spent in battle of one sort of another, he’d also seen far more than his share of fear. Which was why Bucky suddenly knew, beyond any doubt, that Joss was terrified of something. She was actually doing a damn good job of hiding it; she’d deflected his attention from it for the entire previous day, and right up until this moment. But he knew he was right. And given what she’d just said, coupled with the expression he saw underneath her false humor, now that he was looking for it, a whole lot of things suddenly began to fit together in a new shape. 

Bucky was reminded of a tenement fire he’d seen once in Brooklyn. Being typical young boys, he and Steve had gone running to the building to watch, expecting to see some cool flames, maybe some exciting heroics by the fire crews. They had seen some of those things, but the thing that had haunted ten-year-old Bucky for months afterward was the looks on the faces of those trapped on the upper floors. Grown men had stood in open windows, staring in wide-eyed terror at the flames consuming the rooms behind them, near-paralyzed with fear as they tried to find the courage to jump into the life net spread by the firefighters below.

Joss looked like that now. What danger was pursuing her that leaving the hospital far too soon was the better alternative?

“What’s going on with you? Why would you-“

She just shook her head and looked down at their joined hands. “Just… It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to thank you, and tell you that I’m glad I met you. But now I think you better go. People know who you are, and I don’t want you to get blamed for me breaking out of here.”

“Dammit, Joss, _talk_ to me! What’s going on?”

“I can’t. Let’s not do a whole thing-“

“Just knock it off, will you? Quit treating me like a one-night stand. Maybe I can help.”

When Joss met Bucky’s eyes again, the fear was unveiled, along with a deep sorrow he hadn’t even known was there. “I’m sorry, Bucky. I meant what I said; I really like you. Please. Just go. It’s OK. I promise.”

For a long time, they engaged in a silent battle of wills that Joss won by cheating. Her large, brown eyes filled with tears. “Please,” she whispered. “I need to get out of here before the doctor comes by.”

“Tell me one thing.”

“What?”

“Are you running from _me_?”

She sighed before answering in a voice his enhanced hearing barely registered. “Not specifically.”

“What does that mean?”

“Bucky, I can’t-“

“Fine. Don’t tell me. But I’m coming with you.”

“No. You’re not.”

“Either we both go or neither of us do. I’m not letting you die.”

“I’m not going to die.”

“I know. Because I’m going with you.”

“Bucky-“

They both stiffened as they heard one of the nurses greet Joss’s surgeon. Joss’s pleading look hit Bucky harder than Steve’s fists ever had.

“You got shoes?” He asked.

*****

Bruce and Catherine had done all the work for which they needed to be in Catherine’s lab at Columbia, and both needed a break from the solid days of research they’d been doing. So on their way back to the tower, they took the opportunity to have lunch at a place Bruce liked nearby. 

“This looks like a place you’d go,” Catherine mused, gazing around at the small, dim Thai restaurant with floor-to-ceiling partitions between each booth. The atmosphere was hushed, partly because there were few customers, and partly because the floor was thickly carpeted and the partitions were covered with fabric that absorbed sound. 

Bruce looked around, a slight furrow between his eyebrows. “It does?”

“Oh, I like it, don’t get me wrong. It’s got a sort of opium den aesthetic. And I’m pretty sure if they were ever asked, everyone here would swear they’ve never seen you before.”

Bruce just grinned shyly at his lap. 

“Bruce… I want to ask you something, and I don’t know how you’ll feel about it. Do you mind if I ask how things are going for you? With, you know…”

“My little problem?”

“Well, if you want to call him little.”

He actually smiled a bit at that. “I’m… working on it. Always working on making it stop, but also trying to figure out-“ He stumbled over what he meant to say.

“What?” She prodded gently.

“Well, he’s… useful sometimes, you know? I mean, there are some situations where a pissed off nine-foot, green beastie comes in awful handy.”

“Like with the Chitauri.”

“For one example. So, I mean… I’m not so sure now that getting rid of him entirely is the right end goal.”

“So controlling him, then?”

He sat back, pulling at his already-mussed hair in a way that made Catherine’s heart ache. “Well, that’s the problem. I think there’s a reason alcoholics just quit drinking entirely. Eliminating a threat seems a hell of a lot easier than controlling it.”

The waiter arrived then, and Catherine watched Bruce as he ordered, just letting herself appreciate the unruly curls in his perpetually-mussed hair, his soulful, dark eyes and little-boy smile. It hurt to look at him, and yet she couldn’t look away. She realized it and wanted to berate herself for indulging in the adolescent pastime of wallowing in her insipid emotions. She’d mercilessly mocked all those young girls crowded together to scream and cry whenever the Beatles appeared anywhere in the 1960’s. Yet here she was, doing basically the same thing. _Bloody prat_. Next, she’d be driving by the tower at night to see if the lights in his lab were on.

Bruce had introduced Catherine to Thai food in London. She’d never been adventurous when it came to food, and back then, she’d thought that all Thai food had to be spicy enough to burn a hole in your clothing if you spilled any. He’d wheedled her into trying it, which wasn’t hard with his irresistible pout. Besides which, she’d been so lost in love with him she’d have done it just because he wanted her to. Once she’d tried it, she quickly came to like it as much as he did, and they’d sought out great Thai places wherever they happened to be, including Thailand once. 

In fact, they’d had Thai food on the night her world was destroyed. 

Bruce had been in London working with a team using the radiation facilities at Brunel University. It had been a glorious two weeks; Bruce’s research was going well and Catherine had been able to indulge her desire to spoil him rotten the entire time he’d been staying in her flat. 

That day, a Friday, was the last day Bruce’s team had use of the University’s equipment, which meant Bruce would be leaving for the U.S. the next day. Not wanting to miss one second of the time they’d had left, and knowing it was getting toward the end of her workday, Bruce had surprised Catherine by being in her office when she’d returned from a meeting. She could feel his impending departure in her bones, so seeing him in her office, looking rumpled and adorable while avidly reading a technical journal he had no business understanding, she hadn’t taken her eyes off him even as she locked her office door behind her. 

He stood then, meeting her in the middle of the small room where their mouths met, their kisses sweet but demanding. They held each other close, stroking and touching almost immediately. There was nothing frantic about the way they removed each other’s clothing; they were tender with one another, but they both had a definite destination in mind. That destination was apparently standing with Catherine’s back to her heavy wooden desk, one leg wrapped around Bruce’s waist as he pumped into her. Catherine was still wearing her bra and Bruce his shirt, although it was completely unbuttoned.

She’d teased him on the way to dinner that he should order water to stay hydrated, given that she wasn’t done with him for the night. He’d laughed and dropped her hand in favor of putting his arm around her as they’d walked into one of their favorite Thai restaurants in Islington, just off the High Street. They’d laughed all through dinner, putting a brave face on their imminent separation, like always. 

It happened when they left the restaurant. It was still early, maybe seven O’clock, as they walked toward Catherine’s flat, arm in arm and chatting animatedly about Bruce’s research and paying no attention to anything around them. It wasn’t even fully dark, but the men had been hiding in the shadows of a small walkway between two blocks of flats, waiting for someone just like Bruce and Catherine to come by. When they did, each was grabbed by one of the men and pulled into the dark of the walkway, shoved against one of the buildings and held there while a third threatened them with what looked like a butcher knife. 

Bruce was ready to hand over anything they wanted. He’d begun to explain to the guy with the knife that he was reaching for his wallet. But Catherine had no such ideas. Her fury at being accosted, and the fear she tried to hide behind it, made her mouthy. Something she said, she’d never know which foulmouthed insult, flipped a switch in the one holding her. He grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her and then threw her back against the wall, smashing her head against the brick and knocking her half-unconscious. She slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood. But the guy, entirely unhinged at that point, began to kick her and pummel her with his fists.

Through a red haze, Catherine saw only dim, confusing movement. But she heard English voices. First angry and threatening, then confused, then terrified, and finally screaming before going silent. Through it all, she could hear Bruce… What? Shouting? Maybe at first. But after a few moments, the noise he made could only be described as roaring. She had an impression of something – it seemed to be a person, but it was too big – moving quickly and throwing things. People. Throwing the men who had attacked them.

And then she was being lifted off the ground by impossibly large hands that felt more like stone than flesh, except that they were warm. And green. 

She shook off some of the lethargy threatening to engulf her, screamed and began to try to struggle, but the massive green… man? _jumped_ , with her in his arms, from the alley to the roof of one of the three-story buildings on either side of the little walkway. At that point, she decided she must already be unconscious and dreaming or hallucinating, or whatever one did when one was unconscious. So she quit fighting it and closed her eyes, giving in to the onrushing darkness.

She’d awoken in a hospital bed with the worst headache she’d ever had and Bruce sitting in a chair next to her, refusing to look at her. It had taken a moment to realize that he was crying. 

She couldn’t remember anymore what he’d said to her, the words he’d used to apologize, over and over, and to promise – as though she wanted it – that she would never have to see him again. But she would never forget the sound of his voice. The pain, the unspeakable shame, the regret and horror as he’d confessed his wretched secret. She’d tried to tell him that she loved him anyway. That she would face it with him, because he was worth everything, and _anything_ was better than losing him. She’d begged him to stay, to listen to her, to trust her. He hadn’t heard a word. 

In the end, she’d been sobbing and pleading even as he made his tearful exit from her hospital room, vowing never to put her in danger again and swearing that he would stay away from her. When her nurse had rushed to her bedside and seen the state she was in, her doctor had given orders to sedate her and call in her family.

Catherine blinked, suddenly finding herself in New York, almost three years later, with Bruce sitting across the table smiling quizzically at her.

“Huh?” 

“It’s your turn to order,” he said. “Where’d you go?”

“Oh, I… Yeah, I… Sorry, I was…” She wasn’t about to tell Bruce that she’d just been remembering the night she met the Hulk and lost the love of her life. Instead, she looked up at the bored waiter and ordered the first thing she could think of.

*****

Even the early risers in the Villa didn’t get moving until mid-morning, so no one blinked when Sam and Anita’s first appearance downstairs occurred at almost noon. In fact, that was the reason the staff made breakfast by request until eleven, when they set out a sumptuous, buffet-style brunch featuring cold seafood, made-to-order omelettes, and a full array of morning-after drinks. Sam and Anita both opted for Bloody Marys, very quietly asking the bartender to add only a splash of vodka.

If anything could convince them that nothing was surprising or off-limits at one of Jarman Arias’s house parties, it was the amused good cheer with which Arias greeted them. 

“Oh, it’s so good to see you two happily reunited this morning,” he crowed, smiling delightedly as he placed a hand on each of their shoulders in a loose approximation of a group hug. 

Sam looked awkwardly down and took an ostentatiously large drink of his Bloody Mary. “Yeah, look, I’m sorry about last night. I get a little crazy when I drink sometimes.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” Arias laughed. “With a woman as beautiful as Anita, any man would feel as you do.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow, apparently impressed. “You’re somethin’, Arias.”

“Well…” Arias shrugged, failing miserably to look humble. 

“Listen, do you think we could just forget about last night? It wasn’t my finest moment.”

“Sam, my friend, it’s forgotten. We won’t speak of it again.”

“Good, because I was wonderin’, as many diversions as you got around here, you ever do any business during one of these things?”

The change in Arias raised the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck. He shrugged, but the predatory look in his eyes was unmistakable. “At times. What kind of business did you have in mind?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sam answered, running a hand behind his neck as though he was uncomfortable and unable to hide it. “I just thought we might have a conversation. A quiet conversation.”

“I’m intrigued. Why don’t we spend some time together this afternoon? I like to practice my golf swing when I’m here. Do you golf?”

“I’m not sure you could call what I do _golf_ , but…”

Arias laughed heartily. “Then meet me on the driving range. We’ll see if we can’t improve your swing. Say two O’clock?”

“I’ll be there,” Sam beamed. 

Arias then turned his attention to Anita, who smiled beatifically at him, but remained at Sam’s side. “My dear, you look beautiful this morning.”

“Thank you, _Papi_. You’re not mad at me?” 

Sam wouldn’t have been mad at her if she took a chainsaw to his dog, if she looked at him like that. 

“Oh, _mi flor_ , you’re a _paisa_. Our blood runs hotter than others’. Of course I understand.” She positively glowed as he took her hand to kiss it. “But. If you’ll excuse me, I must see to my other guests.”

Sam and Anita watched him hustle to the side of a couple, both of whom looked _much_ the worse for wear, whom Anita told Sam were a Bolivian rock star and his model girlfriend. As if in response to a signal, Sam and Anita set their drinks down and turned toward the villa. As they tried to look casual sauntering across the patio, Sam unbuttoned his shirt and Anita removed the brightly-colored wrap covering her red bikini. 

The villa was built on an artificial hill so that it overlooked the beach and commanded a spectacular view of miles of green-blue ocean. The main patio and lawn were on one level but, on the other side of the villa away from the beach, a lower level opened onto a spacious parking area. Sam and Anita had both independently discovered that the security hub of the house was in a corner of that lower level. Arias had given Anita a tour, and one of the guests, a telenovela star, had drunkenly shared with Sam that more than one of the important guests at the party were in thrall to Arias because the surveillance controlled from that room had given him ample material for blackmail over the years. After that, Sam had made sure to meet one of the men the telenovela star had told him was part of the team who did the monitoring.

Sam wasn’t sure he was up to this part, but he was game. He was about as straight as a man could be, but he figured flirting was flirting, and he was a grand master, if he did say so himself. He knocked on the door from the outside to the security room as he opened it and stepped in, Anita right behind him.

“Can we come in?” He smiled broadly as he ignored the fact that he was already there.

“Oh… Sam,” a young, reddish-haired man said, stumbling up from his chair in front of a bank of monitors and grinning uncomfortably.

“Hey, Keith. You said I could come by. Now a bad time?”

“No, it’s… Come on in.” The man named Keith looked suspiciously at Anita. 

“This is my girlfriend, Anita. She wanted to come with me, is that OK?”

Keith looked a little disappointed. “Sure. Hey, Anita.”

She smiled happily at him. “Nice to meet you, finally. Sam’s been talking about you. He’s right. You are hot.”

Suddenly Keith wasn’t so disappointed anymore. In fact, he looked both excited and just a little frightened. Sam thought it was cute. 

Anita winked at Keith and quite pointedly turned her back to introduce herself to the other two men in the room while Sam stepped closer to Keith. 

“So, you said you’d show me this amazing system of yours?” 

“Yeah, sure.”

The next fifteen minutes were a delicate dance, while Sam made his moves on Keith, and Anita did her best to make friends with the other two men who were supposed to be monitoring the feeds from the ridiculous number of cameras around the villa. Both Sam and Anita got crash courses in the system, although all they really needed to know was the specific locations of cameras in one particular area of the house. Nonetheless, they paid rapt attention to their hosts. Fortunately, the two guys Anita was entertaining paid rapt attention to her body straining the tensile strength of her bikini’s fabric. 

Eventually, Sam worked his way to sitting on a rolling chair very close to Keith’s, their heads close together as Sam giggled and messed with buttons and Keith giggled back, playfully scolding him and resetting them. Anita leaned closer to her new friends.

“Hey, you guys, you think maybe we’re intruding on a bit of a moment?” She asked conspiratorially, tossing her head toward Sam and Keith, now whispering something to one another. “Maybe we should take a little break, huh?” She had their absolute, undivided attention as she pulled a fat joint from her bikini top.

She wasn’t surprised to see them agree quickly, especially because she slid a hand down each man’s arm, pulling them sweetly toward her and starting toward the door. As she passed through on the way outside, Anita glanced back to see Keith whispering something into Sam’s ear, Sam’s hand on his thigh.

The marijuana Anita offered the two guards was nothing like what Natasha had offered Santi and the other guards at Arias’s underground facility in Washington. Anita’s joint was, in fact, from Tony’s personal stash, and he’d guaranteed that anyone who took more than a hit or two would most definitely not be paying attention to detail afterward. By the time Anita and the two guards returned to the control room, she could see he’d been understating things. She was intrigued to see that Sam and Keith were actually trading tentative nips at each other’s lips when they returned, and Sam made sure that Keith wasn’t able to pay any more attention than the other two as Anita surreptitiously made a few adjustments to the sequence in which the program shuffled through camera feeds. Of course, she did it while leaning over far more than necessary, pretending to show her own targets something on one of the feeds while they goggled at her chest.

A while afterward, Sam and Anita smoothly and reluctantly wrapped up their visit to the control room, leaving all three men in no shape to pay much attention to which camera feeds were, or were not, showing as the monitors cycled through them.

“How stoned are you?” Sam asked, as they made their way from the control room to their next tasks. 

“Just nicely toasted. I’ll be fine when it’s time. But I’ll tell you something. When this is over, I definitely gotta party with Tony Stark. That was some nice stuff. It was a damn crime to only pretend to inhale.”

“Be careful. I heard he had Snoop Dogg beggin’ for mercy once.”

“You know what? I can believe that.”


	11. Insert Fondue Joke Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Catherine are engeeked in a mystery. Clint and Natasha, well... fondue. Steve and Tony have a moment.

Clint could only smirk as he watched Banner and Dr. Mulready squinting at pictures of the machine, turning them in different directions trying to get an idea what its purpose might be. All he could think of was people trying to make sense of particularly gymnastic pornography. He wasn’t surprised that they paid no attention to him. He’d known Banner – and Tony Stark, for that matter – long enough to have experienced that particular phenomenon plenty of times. He called it engeekment, and he knew that when they were fully engeeked, he could strip naked and lead Natasha in a lively tango and the most the scientists would do is shush them so they could concentrate. 

He and Natasha shared an amused eyeroll, and their entertainment only grew when Bruce and Catherine began showing each other pictures. Their reactions were comical as hell. When one would hold a photo up to the other, the result could be anything from an inarticulate grunt to an intrigued hum; the one constant was that there were never words. Unless “Huh” counted as a word. Clint didn’t think so. 

“So, um… Did you guys want to ask us any questions?” Natasha asked with a twist of her lips. 

There was absolutely no response. In fact, at that moment, Catherine held her tablet out to Bruce and pointed to something on the screen. He hummed for a moment before shrugging one shoulder and going back to his screen.

“Do you guys want to see Natasha do her Red Skull impression?” Clint asked.

Nothing.

“We were thinking about playing a practical joke on Stark,” Natasha noted drily. “Any objections if we launched the tower into orbit?”

Crickets.

“You might experience some discomfort, including weightlessness and periodic shortness of breath before your blood boils and you explode.”

When Bruce nodded almost imperceptibly and muttered a soft “Mmmm-hmmm” under his breath, Clint looked at Natasha with a raised eyebrow. “Sounds like we’re a go, then.”

At that moment, Catherine looked up from her tablet. “What’s it smell like?”

Bruce looked up quickly, too, as though it was the most brilliant scientific query since Newton’s “’The fuck is up with these apples?” 

“Huh?” Perhaps not Natasha’s most clever response, but it got her point across.

“The room where the machine was,” Bruce clarified. “Was there a smell? Was the air hot? Cold? Humid? Dry?” 

Clint and Natasha grinned at each other again before Clint answered. “Hot. There was a cooling system, you can see the ducts, there and there,” he pointed. “Air was dry, and it smelled like lightning, y’know?”

“What, that ozone smell?” Catherine asked, clearly fascinated by that information.

“I guess.”

Whatever that meant, Bruce and Catherine looked at each other and nodded as though he’d confirmed something they’d, like, actually discussed. They were suddenly ignoring the others again and both looking intently into the screen of Bruce’s tablet. 

“Do you think…” Catherine asked breathlessly.

Bruce grunted. “I’m sure of it. What else could it be?” 

“That can’t be powerful enough. Can it?”

“You tell me. How much would it take?”

“I’d have to know the properties of that energy.”

“That’s Stark. We need him to see these.”

Both heads swiveled up from the screen to Clint and Natasha, the gazes leveled at them so intense Clint was surprised they weren’t slammed against the wall.

“He has these, right?” Bruce demanded.

“He has them. But he’s analyzing his own data from the Atlanta site. I don’t know if he’s-“

As one, Bruce and Catherine picked up their tablets and turned toward the conference room door, murmuring heatedly. Clint and Natasha could only stare after them, their faces equal parts amazement and mirth. 

“What just happened?” Clint asked, standing next to Natasha but both still looking at the door.

“Were there even words? I know a few languages, and I don’t think that was any of them.”

At that moment, Bruce appeared in the doorway again, Catherine so close behind him she bumped into him when he stopped. Clint had seen Bruce get his first glimpse of aliens invading New York, and he would swear there had been less avid curiosity on Banner’s face back then.

Breathless, Bruce demanded, “What’s it sound like?”

That was it for Clint and Natasha. Bruce and Catherine could get nothing out of them for the next five minutes as they both dissolved into hysterics. Had they known it, Clint and Natasha’s pointing and new spasms of hilarity every time their eyes met was every bit as entertaining to Bruce and Catherine as their earlier wordless communication had been to Clint and Natasha. Or would have been, if they weren’t so impatient for the answer to their question.

“Seem to have lost the plot, what?” Catherine murmured to Bruce, indicating them.

“HEY!” 

A shocked silence struck both Clint and Natasha, who whipped their heads around to stare, stock-still, at Bruce, whom neither had ever heard shout before. You know, when he wasn’t nine feet tall and green.

Bruce scowled at them and said, “Sound.”

Clint looked blankly at Natasha, who answered, “It hummed. Low, but loud. There was a, I don’t know, sort of electrical whine under the humming.”

“Told you,” Clint heard Catherine say as both she and Bruce disappeared from the doorway as quickly as they’d appeared.

Clint and Natasha spent the next fifteen minutes slouched in chairs at the conference room table, laughing and reliving things Bruce and Catherine had just said and done.

“Did you see when he pointed to her screen and she just said ‘no’, and he looked like she kicked his dog?”

“I want to know what they were looking at when she whistled and he nodded and grunted.”

When their laughter died down, there was a moment of silence, where they simply sat, grinning at the whole thing. After a while, Clint felt Natasha’s eyes on him and looked up.

“Do you suppose we’re like that?” She asked, a wistful expression on her face.

He answered warmly. “You know we are.”

“Are we?”

“Always have been. I think we’re cute.”

“You would.”

“I would, and I do. Whereas you, just to prove your ‘I am a stern Russian island’ _bona fides_ , pretend you don’t. Luckily for you, I know you better than that.”

Clint stood, chuckling, and moved to leave the room.

“Clint.”

He turned. “Yeah?”

Natasha was scowling into the middle distance, not looking at him but not looking away, either. “I’m not a stern Russian island,” she almost whispered. 

“I know.”

“That scares the living hell out of me.” She looked into his eyes.

He moved back toward her, his voice soft as he said, “I know that, too.”

He came to stand directly in front of her, and she stood from her chair so that they were almost, but not quite, touching. For a long moment, neither of them said anything as Clint watched emotions cross Natasha’s face like waves.

“I don’t want to be a stern Russian island,” she said sadly, now looking into his eyes. “But I think… I think it might be too late for me.”

The pain in her voice nearly broke Clint’s heart. He took one of her upper arms in each of his hands, holding gently but firmly. “It will never be too late for you and me, Tasha. Don’t ever think that. I love you. I can’t help it. I’ve stopped trying.”

“But, that’s-“

“It’s the way it is. Doesn’t mean you ever have to do anything. But it means you will always have that option, as long as I’m breathing.”

“Clint…” A tear slid from her eye. Just one, which she roughly pushed from her cheek. 

He touched her chin, softly and briefly, and smiled as he leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. “Don’t cry, my love. You’ll smear your makeup.”

He wondered, as he left the room, whether she was watching him. He doubted it. If he knew his Natasha, she was looking inward, trying to beat her emotions ruthlessly into submission. For him, it was simple. He was in love with her, and what she was able to give him was enough. It had to be, so it was.

He was shocked to feel her touch him on the hip as he entered his apartment. He’d had no idea she was anywhere near. When he turned, she moved closer, pressing her body against his and sliding her arms around his waist as he flicked the door closed. Her eyes were luminous, not only with emotion, but also with heat, like a long-banked fire that had suddenly been stirred into flame.

“I want you to convince me,” she said.

“Tasha, you don’t have to…”

She lifted her face to his, the slightest twist to her lips. “Please, Clint. Don’t make me spend months in Wakanda.”

“What are you-“

“You know how strong my conditioning is. They didn’t fry my brain like they did Barnes. I’m hardwired from childhood. But I think, between you and me…”

“There’s nothing you and I can’t do together.”

“That’s what I think, too,” she said, letting the emotion overcome the heat for a moment. “I don’t know how to be in love. I only know not to. You’re going to have to teach me how.”

“Anything you need. Anything you want. All you’ve ever had to do is ask.”

She moved a hand to the back of his neck, and used it to pull his lips to hers. “Then convince me I can let myself love you.” 

For Clint, kissing Natasha was something to be savored. From the first touch of her exquisite lips, in that musty, dark dockside room in Tallinn, he had never been able to get enough of kissing her. He dreamed of the taste of her kisses and the way she sighed, almost too quiet to hear, when she let herself melt into him. So he didn’t rush things. He simply stood cupping her face in his hands, feeling one of her arms around him and the other hand in his hair, moving his mouth against hers until he felt her part her lips in irresistible invitation. Even this, he took slowly and reverently, spending a long time tasting her lower lip with the tip of his tongue before moving to her upper lip and feeling her breath mingle with his.

“I love you, Tasha,” he whispered before adding just a bit of pressure and licking at her tongue. She only moaned softly in response and kissed him harder. 

He waited, pouring his love into his kisses, until he could feel her rubbing her chest against his and not-so-subtly pushing him toward his bedroom before he dragged his lips from hers. He smoothed one hand over her hair and slid the other from her jaw to her shoulder. When she opened her eyes to his, he slid both hands down her arms to the hem of the loose, blush-colored sweater she wore over skin-tight leather leggings. The light knit fabric of her sweater was perhaps the softest thing he’d ever felt; it was almost like a breath as he smoothed his hands up her body, lightly tracing her curves as he did. She arched into his touch and raised her arms, shaking her hair loose of the neckline when he slipped it over her head and let it fall. 

Rather than move on, Clint paused with his hands splayed across her back, looking down into her face with a mixture of love and concern. “I need you to tell me you’re OK, Tasha…”

“I’m OK,” she gasped, the tiniest laugh in her voice as she pulled him back to her and impatiently yanked his shirt from his jeans, rucking it up his chest. “I just need you.”

The second his shirt hit the floor, he bent to slide an arm behind her knees and pick her up, cradling her in his arms and recapturing her lips as he carried her into his bedroom. Thick, dark drapes blocked most of the afternoon light from the wall of windows so that the room was in shadow, with a few bars of bright sunshine splashed across the floor. Clint let Natasha’s legs gently down when they were standing next to the bed, but made no further moves except to kiss her with all the passion he felt and begin to murmur to her.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Do you know that?”

Her answer was to unbutton and unzip his jeans. So he unfastened her bra and slid the straps down her arms while she pushed his jeans and briefs down his hips as far as she could. It would probably have been funny to an observer, watching her shrug her bra to the floor and him using his feet to pull his pants off while they both tried to continue the deep, hungry kisses that were pulling moans from both of them. Eventually, though, Clint was naked and broke the kiss to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling Natasha between his legs. He made short work of her leggings, pulling her shoes off with them.

Clint’s warm hands grasped Natasha’s waist and he held her there, softly and slowly moving his mouth across her body to cover her with kisses and soft nips. As he lifted his face to mouth the underside of a breast, he was gratified to see that her eyes were closed and her head tipped back, not assessing or thinking, just surrendering herself to sensation. He smiled against her soft, fragrant flesh and allowed his own mind to go fuzzy as he, too, gave in to the feeling of her nipple hardening against his tongue.

When he knew she had no intention of moving away, he caressed down her hip and leg, sliding his hand to the inside of her thigh, and reverently whispered her name as she took a step sideways to give him room. He didn’t think the growing tension in her muscles had anything to do with being unsure about this, a sense which was confirmed when his fingers reached her folds and felt her full-body shiver.

“You may not be able to say you love me, but your body says it for you. All this,” he slid two fingers across her entrance, showing her how drenched she was. “Is that for me?”

Again, she didn’t answer with words; she let out a breathy moan and spread her legs further. Accepting her invitation, he slipped the tips of his fingers inside her, surprised at her heat. It had been a long time since Clint had made love to Natasha, but he remembered her body, her scent, her taste. Suddenly, feeling her respond to this slow, deliberate first stroke into her, he had a near-overwhelming urge to get his mouth on her. He fought it down, instead continuing to worship her breasts with his lips and tongue, while he began to find creative ways to move his fingers as he slid them in and out of her.

Not until she was gasping and moving against his hand did he stand and lift her again, laying her on the bed like the most precious, fragile thing in his life. Which she was. 

“This is where you belong, Tasha, where we belong,” he hissed between sloppy, tongue-heavy kisses as he knelt between her spread legs, resting his weight on his arms on either side of her. “You and me, together. We’re made for this. For each other. You know that.”

“I know,” she breathed, eyes squeezed shut and a wrinkle of concentration on her brow. “The very first second I saw you - I’ve been yours from that second.”

“Hey. Look at me.”

She took a few seconds to find the courage to open her eyes, letting him see the fear in their green depths. He grinned and rubbed her nose with his. “It’s just me, OK? It’s just us. Nothing scary here except how much I want you.”

Clint was rewarded with a small smile and the slightest of nods. “Just you and me.”

“OK?”

This nod was just a bit more certain. “I’m good. I just need you.”

Clint huffed a small chuckle and kissed her deeply before beginning a long, slow journey down her body, inhaling her scent, kissing her everywhere, taking time to use his mouth on her nipples before continuing. When he eventually settled between her legs, lifting her thighs over his shoulders, he felt like he’d finally reached a destination he’d been moving toward for a long, long time. Not only in terms of their relationship, but even in terms of this moment. It had been over half an hour since he’d begun to kiss her. He and Natasha had certainly had quick, needy sex, but this was not the time. Now was the time to draw things out, to try to inundate her with pleasure and love, and remind her that she was entirely safe with him. 

She seemed to feel safe enough as she relaxed into his tongue, groaning and shifting her hips while he finally indulged his need to taste her. She’d told him before that archery wasn’t his greatest skill, and he put forth his best effort now, torn between concentrating on her pleasure and his own. He reached up a hand to take one of hers, connecting them emotionally while he hummed against her clit, lips pursed and exerting just the slightest bit of suction. 

Too soon for him, she began to cry out and grind against him. He backed off her clit, spending more time sliding his tongue into her as far as he could until her movements and the obscene sounds she was making told him it was time. There was no way he wanted her to come without him inside her.

He kissed his way back up her body until he could feel her against the tip of his achingly hard cock. He wasn’t sure exactly who was fucking whom, with the way she wrapped her strong thighs around his hips and pulled him into her. He kept his weight on his knees so that he could pull almost all the way out and then feel every contour as he thrust back into her. More importantly, he balanced on his forearms so that he could look into her eyes as he did it.

“Say it,” he growled. “Tell me you love me, Tasha.”

“I love you. You know I do. You know how much I love you.” All hesitation was gone. In her eyes now, all he could see was want. 

He didn’t stop his strong but slow thrusts into her as he spoke. “Which makes you stronger. You and me, we’re stronger together than we are apart. You know that, too. How many times have we proven that?”

“Barton, if you start talking about Budapest right now, I will end you.”

He laughed into her neck. “Fine. How about I end _you_ , instead? You’ve heard of happy endings?”

“Holy _shit_ that was lame,” she snickered, bucking her hips up into him. “But I’ll forgive you if you don’t stop…”

Clint groaned loudly. “Ah, fuck, Tasha, I’m gonna come.”

“Wait for me. I’m almost there, wait for me,” she cried.

“I’d wait forever for you…”

That promise, which she knew to be true, apparently pushed her over the edge. She clutched hard at Clint’s shoulders, hissing a long, drawn out, “ooooooohhh fuuuuuuuuuuck!”

The wild, fuck-drunk look on her face as she came was all Clint needed before he was shooting explosively into her, grunting with each thrust and then transitioning into a low, guttural groan.

Although Clint needed to slow down while his brain rebooted and his body stopped shuddering deliciously, they didn’t stop. He rolled them to their sides, looking at each other and exploring with their hands to remind themselves of all the secrets they knew about each other’s bodies. He’d long ago learned how to touch Natasha to give her as many climaxes as she’d let him, which turned out to be several over the next hour, before she reacquainted her soft but demanding mouth with his dick and returned the favor.

She felt different in his arms than he remembered as she lay sprawled on top of him, while he combed his fingers through the silk of her hair. Softer, somehow. More at peace. She lifted up to study his face with her eyes and fingers. 

“What changed?” Clint’s blue gaze was soft with dilated desire, but a hopeful curiosity burned behind his eyes as he kissed her forehead. “Why now?”

“I want what Banner and Catherine have.”

“Um… they’re not together, you know.”

“Yes, they are. He’s just not quite done fighting it.” She sat up, straddling him and idly stroking his chest as she spoke thoughtfully. “But I am. I can’t do this anymore. I love you. I’ve tried not to, but I can’t stop, and you’re too fucking stubborn to give up and move on. I see you every day, and what kind of man you are, and all the incredible things that you can do, and I just… I can’t stay away. I’m so tired of disappointing you.”

As he used one hand to stroke her breasts, he watched her nipples harden again and goosebumps form on her skin. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. 

“Look at me and tell me you love me,” he ordered.

She did, but her face was serious as she added, “I can’t change who I am. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“I don’t need easy,” he answered, squeezing her hips. “I just need you.”

“I’m probably going to hurt you. I never want to do that, but I’m not built for this. I don’t know how to do this, and it’s so hard-”

“I know. Shhhh. I know,” he crooned as he pulled her down to his chest. “Believe me, I know what I’m getting into. I also know that it’s all that I want.” He kissed her forehead through her bangs.

*****

Steve practically tore the door of his hotel room off its hinges when the knock came. He’d been waiting for Tony for what felt like weeks. When he saw the exhaustion and concern written in every line of Tony’s face and posture, however, he immediately reined in his impatience. 

“Shit, Stark, you look like hell.”

Tony patted Steve’s cheek as he passed him, entering the room. “I love you, too, Yoko,” he mumbled as he crossed to the bed and threw himself face-first onto it. He said something into the mattress, but all Steve heard was a tired rumble.

“What?”

Tony turned his head so his face wasn’t buried in the bedspread. “We’ve got a big problem.”

“You got enough left in the tank to tell me about it? I could give you a few hours to crash-“

“Yeah, I will, on the plane. We gotta get back to New York.”

“We can give you some time. The meeting’s not for two days.”

“I need my lab. I need Banner and Mulready. I’ve already got them working on some stuff.”

Steve sat on the edge of the bed. “What are we dealing with?”

“That energy. It’s not from here. We followed the signature to the source this time, and it’s another fucking alien power source. Like the Tesseract or an Infinity Stone, but it apparently doesn’t have its own juice, it only amplifies power run through it. But the level of amplification is astronomical.”

“Damn. I don’t know whether to be happy we know about this shit or pissed that the bad guys aren’t more creative.”

“Oh, this guy’s creative, all right. The thing’s small and round, right? Glows the ugliest damn green you ever saw? And it’s sitting in the middle of a damn doomsday machine shaped like Chichen Itza.”

“Chichen Itza?”

“You can thank Barton for that one. Anyway, it’s the same as the one they found in D.C., which means there’s more than one of these damn orbs, or whatever you want to call them. More than one machine. And they’re fucking dystopian nightmares, these things. Ask me if they’re capable of causing the shit we’ve been seeing. I dare you.”

“I’m guessing that’s my answer.”

“Humor me, Cap, I’m runnin’ on fumes here.”

“OK. Are they capable of causing the weather phenomena? And the fire? The earthquake?”

“No.”

Steve started. “Wait… No?”

“No. Which means we haven’t gotten to the bottom of this thing yet. All these machines do is create a metric crapton of power. Who, or what, uses that power is a different question. And I got nothin’.”

“I’ll get everyone brainstorming that.”

“Do it,” Tony mumbled slowly. “And get everybody ready to bounce. Plane’s gonna be ready in an hour.”

“Done. And, Tony?”

Stark cracked a bloodshot eye open, looking up at the strange note in Steve’s voice. “Great work. Nobody but you could’ve figured this out so fast. World’s lucky you’re on our side.”

“If you’re gonna make a pass at me, can it wait until I have the energy to give you a black eye?”

Steve chuckled. “I’ll control myself.” He steeled himself to say the next part. “I’ve been thinking a lot about… what happened. Between us. Sharon’s made me see some things. I know I messed up.”

“Yeah. I know you did, too,” Tony smirked into the bedspread.

Steve felt an initial twinge of irritation, but quickly recognized that Tony was only saying the first snarky thing that came to his mind. Because Tony.

“Anyway, when we can, I was hoping you might be willing to sit down with me. Talk some. I don’t know if it’ll fix things, but I can promise I’ll listen. And not just because of all the stuff you did today. Because we were friends, and I want that back. Whether I deserve it or not.”

Tony closed the eye he’d been watching Steve with and frowned as he sighed. “Well, shit.”

“What?”

“I don’t mind you being the adult in the room, God knows that’s never been me, but now if I don’t say yes, _I’m_ the asshole.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m not the adult in the room, either. That would be Sharon.” 

“Hmm. That actually does make me feel better. Makes us both assholes.”

“That’s what she says.”

“Remind me to marry her.”

“Um… yeah…”

“Slow your roll, Captain Oblivious,” Tony muttered, half a grin showing against the bedspread. “I’m just rattling your cage. I’m not blind. I’d make a fondue joke here, but I’m too fucking beat. Let’s just pretend I did.”


	12. The Biggest Freak On This Particular Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky finds a surprise under Joss's jammies. Sam goes all Scheherazade for Mr. Arias while Anita does some uncovered undercover work.

Joss sat in the overstuffed reading chair in Bucky’s hotel room, chin in hand, determinedly looking out the window as though a parade was passing by. Bucky was getting pissed. Of course, Steve Rogers was the undisputed, all-time most stubborn person on this or any planet, but Joss was turning out to be a close second. Worse, Bucky had no blackmail ammunition on Joss, and didn’t know her weak spots the way he knew Steve’s. Worst of all, he was still nursing his wounds at her apparent complete immunity to what he’d always been assured was his irresistible charm. 

Actually, if he was being honest with himself, that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that she was in obvious distress, which nothing he could do seemed to help. And that mattered to him. In a short but eventful few days, she’d managed to get under Bucky’s skin; until she’d tried to blink back out of his life with no intention of ever seeing him again, he hadn’t realized how deep. Now, here she was, doing her best to pretend he didn’t exist. So yeah. Bucky was pissed.

She looked cute there, curled up in the oversized chair, wearing the pajamas he’d given her, with his cartoon image all over them and the left arm made to look like his. Her dark hair spilled around her shoulders and gleamed in the sunlight shining in on her. But she was curled in on herself and she could no longer hide the sadness and fear Bucky couldn’t get her to acknowledge, let alone explain. 

He sat down on the arm of her chair, offering her a bottle of sparkling mineral water from the mini-bar.

“Here. You’re supposed to drink.”

She took the bottle, but without looking at him. “Thank you, but you don’t –“

“If you tell me one more time I don’t need to worry about you, I’ll… Just drink the fucking water, all right?”

That got her to look at him.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap at you.”

She shook her head. “It’s OK. I know you’re trying to do the right thing here, and I’m not cooperating. I wish you could just trust me a little. I’m fine.”

“Oh, trust _you_ , huh? That how this works? I’m supposed to trust you, but you won’t tell me jack shit? Damn it, Joss,” he spat, getting up and throwing himself onto the bed in frustration. 

“It’s not about trusting you, Bucky. Of course I trust you. It’s… something else.”

“Very fucking illuminating, Joss, thanks for that,” he snarled to the ceiling.

It wasn’t until a few moments later that he realized she was wiping tears from her cheeks. Once again, he crossed the room to her chair, only this time he knelt in front of it, sort of waving his hands like an idiot in front of her, trying to figure out where, or how, to touch her to make her stop crying.

“I’m sorry. I’m a dick, I didn’t mean to make you cry. C’mon, don’t…” Somewhat out of desperation, he reached out and put his arms around her. With her legs curled up into her chest, he was basically holding all of her to him. She ducked her head under his chin, still hiding from him, but she didn’t try to pull away.

“You’re not a dick. You’re being so nice. That just makes it worse…”

“Why? What does it make worse?” He murmured into her hair, which smelled _really_ good.

“Please, don’t ask me that. Please. I know you hate me for being like this, but you’d hate me so much more if you knew…” Now instead of just wiping tears, Joss was actually crying. 

_You’ve definitely lost your touch_ , Bucky thought bitterly. “Joss, unless you’re Hydra, what could possibly…”

_Wait a minute_. He was holding her fairly tight, and she was all curled up against him. With a big-ass incision all down her torso, shouldn’t that hurt? She hadn’t had any pain medication since he’d first arrived at the hospital, which was hours ago now. He loosened his hold on her and pulled back enough to look at her. With his flesh hand, he pulled back the hair that was hiding her face, tucking it behind her ear. 

“Joss. Look at me.”

She was apparently just surprised enough to do as he said, pulling back from him, too. He gently and slowly pulled her legs away from her chest so that she was sitting normally in the chair. 

“Don’t…” she whispered weakly, the fear in her eyes stark terror now.

Bucky looked down at her waist and took the hem of her pajama top in his fingers, beginning to pull it up.

“Bucky, _please_.” She put a hand on his to stop him, but she wasn’t fighting him, just begging him not to look at her incision.

Which wasn’t there.

Where she’d had an incision from the tip of her sternum that extended all the way to her navel and around it, now she had a line of surgical staples over perfectly smooth, unblemished skin. He looked up to her tear-stained face and let her top fall from his fingers. Neither of them moved. She’d lowered her head and turned her face as far away from him as possible, hiding from him as best she could, a picture of abject shame.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered on a choked sob, pulling away from him and curling back up, as far back in the chair and away from Bucky as she could get.

Bucky’s voice was quiet, but calm. “What does that mean?”

“You _don’t_ want to know. Please…”

He put his flesh fingers to her chin and turned her face to look at him, wincing at the pain and humiliation reflected there. “Are you enhanced?”

That actually got a bit of a scoff before she pulled her chin away and hid her face again. “Nothing so heroic.”

_Oh_. “So you’re a m-“

“Do _not_ call me that.” 

“I… OK. So you, um, you…”

“I heal faster than you do. My spleen’s probably regrowing; my appendix did.” She peeked through her hair at him. “So now you know you don’t have to take care of me. Which I’m sure will come as a relief right about now.”

She made to get up from the chair, keeping her hair covering her face. “I’ll go.”

Bucky put his hands on her arms, holding in her in place. “Joss.”

She froze, looking at the floor, or her feet, anywhere that wasn’t him.

“Look at me.”

“Just let me go,” she murmured.

“Joss.” Again, he put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his. She could barely tolerate brief flicks of her eyes at his, instead looking past him. “C’mon, honey, look at me. Please.”

The affectionate nickname had the intended effect; it surprised her enough to look him full in the eye. He tilted his head and spoke in the softest, kindest tone he was capable of.

“Do you really think _I’m_ gonna judge you for being different? You know what I am, right? What I’ve done?”

She shook her head, again breaking eye contact. “It’s not the same. You’re just a man. Those things were done to you. You’re not…”

“I’m not a mutant?”

She jerked in his hands, struggling a little to back away from him again.

“It’s just a word, Joss. C’mon. Hey.” He dipped his head and tried to catch her eyes with his, grinning a little. When she was once again looking at him, albeit miserably, he said, “OK, so you heal like a boss. Cool. And convenient, especially right now, but beyond that…” He shrugged. “So what?”

“Everyone hates mutants. Mutants are… wrong. The government-“

“Yeah, they’re not crazy about me, either. Or the Avengers, for that matter. You might have heard of those damn Accords? It was on all the news channels.”

That got an actual, honest-to-God grin from her. “Heard something like that.”

“Yeah. So you and me? We’re good. OK?”

“Bucky, I’m a _mutant_. You can’t –“

“Uh-uh. Don’t go there. If Steve were here, he’d warn you against telling me what I can’t do. Tends to mess with my better judgement.”

Joss looked up at Bucky through her thick eyelashes, the slightest gleam of hope lighting her tear-filled eyes.

“That’s it. C’mon, sit up.” He wiped the tears from her eyes with the hem of his royal blue Henley. When she was sitting in the chair with her feet on the floor, looking mortified and apologetic, but at least looking at him, Bucky moved a fraction closer to her, keeping her eyes pinned with his. “You got nothing to be ashamed of, Joss. And you can try to push me away all you want, but I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” she whispered, her lips upturned in a faint grin.

“So now I know. And I do _not_ hate you. In fact…” He tilted his head just a fraction, leaning toward her slowly enough that she could stop him if she was going to. Although there was definitely bewilderment in her eyes, there was also a longing that, he realized, wasn’t new. She didn’t stop him. Instead, she took in a small breath, closed her eyes, and tilted her lips up to meet his.

Bucky kept his kiss light and gentle, ending it much sooner than he wanted to, because he knew better than to push Joss right now. She was like a wild colt, skittish and poised to bolt if he made a wrong move. He pushed her hair away from her eyes again, smiling into her eyes.

“Wanted to do that for a while now.”

“Me, too.”

“Yeah, you might have mentioned that,” he teased gently, and relaxed a little when she grinned and gave him a push in his metal shoulder.

“So,” he asked, in that same light tone, “What else can you do?” 

A shadow passed across her face, but she didn’t say anything. She turned to the room’s small table, where Bucky’s half-full water glass sat. She held a hand out to it, palm out as if waving to it. The glass lifted from the table and smoothly floated into her hand.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Nice. Bet that comes in handy.”

“I never, ever use it,” she said flatly.

“Huh. How much can you lift that way?”

“I don’t know. I told you, I never use it.”

“Well, now’s the time. Come on. Let’s play with it a little.”

“No.” Joss scowled at the floor and shook her head vehemently, setting the glass down on the windowsill like it was tainted.

“OK,” Bucky soothed, putting his arms around her again. “OK. Sorry.”

Bucky decided it was nice kneeling next to Joss, just hugging her and smoothing his hand over her hair, so he made no move to let go until he felt her lean tiredly against him. It wasn’t a good feeling, as if she was trying to get closer to him. It was the feeling of defeat seeping back into her.

“Let me guess,” he said softly, not letting go and continuing to stroke her hair. “You’re thinking I’m in shock, and any minute I’ll come to my senses. Right?”

Sure enough, she stiffened a little and pulled back to look sadly at him. 

“You asked me to trust you,” he said. “Now it’s your turn. Remember where I come from, huh? There were no mutants when I grew up, and nobody in Siberia spent a lot of time keeping me up on current events. That means I never learned the prejudices you did. Right?”

She didn’t answer, but her thoughtful, cautiously hopeful expression encouraged him to go on.

“I heal fast. So does Steve. Now I know you do, too. Sorry, doll, but that’s just not shocking to me. And that levitation thing? I am seriously jealous of that. I mean it. I would be _all over_ that shit if I could do it! Damn, I would be _so_ lazy!” He laughed, and was delighted to see that she gave the first smile he’d seen that day. Bucky couldn’t resist reaching a hand up to her cheek and running his thumb, as gently as he’d ever done anything, across it.

“Better,” he whispered.

This time, Joss leaned in toward Bucky as he leaned toward her. That, and the feeling of her arms softly slipping around his neck sent hot shocks outward through his body from somewhere low down. He still moved slowly, cupping her face lightly as he learned her lips. She kissed him tentatively at first, following his lead, until he slid his hand from her cheek back into her hair, fingers exerting a soft pressure on the back of her head. She scooted forward then, sliding her legs to one side so that their bodies were closer together.

That movement let him know that he could deepen his kisses, opening his mouth to capture her lips more completely. Joss followed that, too, giving a little sigh that caused another lightning storm in his gut. Lower down, his body was reacting to his deep attraction to her, and the way she was kissing him woke something primal and hungry in him. Which is why, when he touched her lower lip with the tip of his tongue, and she made another of those quiet sounds of desire and met it with the tip of her own, he pulled her from the chair so that they were both kneeling and he could fully wrap her in his arms, pressing her to him. Their kisses instantly changed, all hesitation gone. Now there was only heat and exploration, and… a knock at the door.

A knock at the fucking door. Whoever was standing outside his hotel room was about to get Bucky’s push dagger in their windpipe.

Joss sort of wilted to the floor with her back against the chair, looking as dazed as Bucky felt. He took a second to lift her hand to his lips, winking as he kissed it and stood to go commit a quick murder so they could get back to their very important business.

Bucky wasn’t even a little surprised that he opened the door to find Steve, or that Steve was in single-minded work mode. 

“Stark’s back. He needs to get back to New York. I know you want to stay here with Joss, but I’m gonna need you. Flight’s in an hour. Sorry, Buck.”

“No sweat. She’s comin’ with us.”

Steve blinked. “How can she be well enough for that?”

“Relaxing on a private jet ain’t exactly rough duty, Steve.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I know. Like I told you, I thought she should stay in the hospital, too. But she’s apparently indestructible.” Bucky inclined his head to where she’d stood up and was coming toward them. He got an unpleasant surprise, however, when he saw the look on her face.

“Captain Rogers, would you please come in here a moment?” Her voice had gone back flat, tinged with shame again. 

Bucky stepped aside and Steve entered the room, looking curiously at Joss. “What is it?”

“Maybe you should sit down,” she suggested, indicating one of the two straight-backed chairs next to the room’s small table.

Steve did as she suggested, perching on the very edge of the chair with an intrigued lift of his eyebrows.

Frowning and swallowing hard, Joss shot a quick look at Bucky before looking back to Steve. “You’re in charge here, and I think there’s something you should know. About me.”

“Joss, you don’t have to-“

“He deserves to know, Bucky. It wouldn’t be right to let him think…”

Bucky lifted a hand as if to say that it was her choice, and she turned back to Steve, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her chin.

“I left the hospital because I’m healed.” She pulled up her top enough to show him part of her surgical staples, and the absence of any wound for them to hold together.

Steve’s eyebrows raised even more. 

“I’m…” She flicked another look to Bucky, who nodded. “I’m a mutant.” 

Then she simply stood before Steve, waiting for his judgment. Although she wasn’t cringing, her posture was defensive, poised for a blow that she was prepared to accept. Bucky felt another surge of affection for her.

“I’ll understand if you want to leave me here. I’ll get home.”

Steve stood. “Is that the only… mutation?”

“I can, um…” She reached out and brought the water glass over from the windowsill, setting it down on the table once it had floated into her hand.

Steve nodded. “Are you dangerous to my team?”

“No. Absolutely not. I can’t do anything about the healing, but I never, ever use that.” She indicated the glass. 

Bucky could have kissed Steve when a slightly confused look crossed his face. “Why not?”

“I don’t…” Joss stammered. “Why not _what_?”

“Why wouldn’t you use an ability like that? I mean, aside from the pure convenience of being able to get stuff without moving, that could be invaluable in a fight.”

Bucky’s smile was radiant as he moved to stand at Steve’s shoulder. Joss was adorable in her shocked perplexity. 

“So what are you asking me here?” Steve went on. “Did you think I wouldn’t want a mutant on the plane with the team?”

He made it sound so stupid Joss actually looked a little embarrassed. “Something like that,” she muttered, looking away from Steve and running a hand through her hair.

Steve chuckled and put a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, Joss, you’re gonna have to do better than that if you wanna be the biggest freak on that particular flight. Thanks for telling me. It brings up some interesting possibilities. Plane leaves in an hour.”

He opened the door and stepped out, nodding to Bucky as he went. When the door closed, Bucky and Joss were left standing a bit awkwardly, smiling at one another. Bucky couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so proud of Steve, and he was in awe of the grace with which Joss had just done something he knew must have felt like jumping off a cliff with no idea how long the fall would be.

“Nicely done,” he told her.

She exhaled deeply, relief palpable in everything about her. “If we only have an hour, I guess I better run out and get some clothes,” she said, pulling at her sleep pants. “These are maybe a little casual.”

She was right, but Bucky had to work not to show his disappointment that they weren’t going to get to return to what they were doing when Steve knocked on the door.

*****

Sam knew which end of a golf club was which, but that was pretty much the extent of it. He tried to look like he’d done this before, but the truth was, he hadn’t. Mini-golf. Twice. That was Sam’s golf experience. 

Luckily for Sam, he was also completely and utterly full of shit, and Arias found him amusing. Which meant that, while Arias practiced his swing, Sam hit a few balls but basically kept up the conversation. 

  


Anita’s role was a bit more challenging. She knew exactly where the cameras were, but avoiding them was tough, mostly because there were just so damn _many_ of them. She was relieved when she finally arrived at the hallway to Arias’s office, which had its share of cameras but, thanks to her, those cameras weren’t being monitored. She still wore the red bikini and the matching heels, but she’d ditched the coverup. This had to be as clean and fast as possible. It occurred to her that a bikini was actually an excellent choice for a stealth invasion. S.H.I.E.L.D. should maybe re-think the tight, black gear they usually wore for covert ops.

  


Sam laughed enthusiastically at Arias’s crude, lame joke, feeling a little ill as he did. Arias wiggled his ample ass and adjusted his shoulders, for no apparent reason as far as Sam could see, then took a swing with his club that looked more appropriate for baseball than golf. He connected with the ball, but the result was a wicked slice that caused Arias to let loose a string of Spanish flecked with projectile saliva. 

“Rough break, man,” Sam observed, saying nothing about the streak of volcanic temper Arias had just demonstrated. 

“Aaah, this game. I pay a lot of money for a man to teach me the correct swing but I think, in my case, it might be hopeless.”

“Just keep at it. Practice makes perfect.”

“Hmmmph.” Arias turned to Sam. “So what is it you wanted to talk to me about? A business discussion, you said.”

Sam looked down to watch himself shuffle his feet. “Well, I just… I was intrigued by your place in D.C. That underground place. It got me thinkin’.”

“I told you, it’s just for safety.”

“Yeah, no, I get that, it’s not about that place, exactly. It’s more… what it represents. See, not a lot of folks have an underground bunker in the middle of a city, or a villa in paradise,” he said, waving a hand to indicate their surroundings. “I mean, _you_ do, and I guess Tony Stark could, if he wanted them. But I been bustin’ my hump with the Avengers, and I’m still livin’ in a rented house in a downscale suburb and drivin’ a Honda. I’m startin’ to, you know, look around a little.”

Arias raised an eyebrow and put another ball on the tee, lining up and doing the same ridiculous, ineffectual shimmy he’d been doing to get ready for his stroke. “Yes, I suppose all men – all real men, anyway – want more. It’s in our DNA, I think.”

Sam said nothing more as he watched Arias take his swing, a fairly nice shot this time. 

  


Anita was concentrating fiercely on what she could hear. There didn’t appear to be anyone in this area of the house, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t. She listened hard outside the door to Arias’s office. When she had lingered as long as she dared, and heard nothing, she slipped inside and pressed herself against the back of the door, ready to react to whoever she found in the room. She was alone. She began a systematic, clockwise search.

  


Down in the control room, the new shift of guards was coming on. They were none too thrilled to find one of the afternoon crew asleep, another drowsily playing a game on his phone, and the third staring off into space with an erection they could see from the doorway. 

The shift leader gave them all an earful, and instructed his team to make a thorough check of the feed from each camera on the property, to make sure this group of _caremondas_ hadn’t missed anything. 

  


“So tell me,” Arias asked condescendingly. “Where is this going?”

“Honestly?” Sam responded. “I’m not sure. I’m just… thinking out loud.” 

“Are you thinking of leaving the Avengers?”

“I told you, I’m not sure. I’m just lookin’ around.”

Arias turned to look at Sam. “And if you did? How would they take that? Would that make me a group of enemies I do not want?”

“Of course not. They’re do-gooders. They’re not about keeping people hostage.”

“Hmmm.” Arias set up for another drive. 

  


There were reasons Anita was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Her fearlessness and quick thinking were among them, but there were others. One was her ability to pack a bikini. For example, she had a tiny external hard drive tucked into the left legband. The fact that Arias’s laptop was just sitting in the middle of his desk, demonstrated another. Which was the incredible luck she seemed to have, no matter how risky the endeavor. She plugged in the hard drive, and watched as the cloning program came up. 

While it ran, she continued her search. When she got to a locked closet, she chose two lock picks from the set stuck into the lining of her bikini bottoms and opened the door easily. Anita sucked in her breath and tried to believe what she was seeing, even as she used the tiny camera embedded in the decorative jewels dangling from between the cups of her bikini top to upload photos that Natalie and Clint would receive back in New York.

  


Arias allowed the driving iron to fall into its slot in his golf bag. “Well, I’ve had about as much of this as I have patience for. Which is clearly more patience than you have, you hit, what? Two balls? Four?”

Sam shrugged, but inside he was anything but nonchalant. It was way too early. “Ain’t much of a golfer, like I said. But, listen, let’s get a drink, huh? Maybe sit down and talk about this.”

Arias left his golf bag to one of the three assistants standing just out of earshot and began to walk toward the electric cart he used to drive around the property. Sam was embarrassed to ride in it; the damn ludicrous thing was designed to look like an Aston Martin, which just ended up making it look like a little kid’s pedal-powered version of a real car. 

“I’d be happy to talk to you about a position with my companies, Sam. Decide what you think you could do, and make me a pitch. But for now, why don’t you find the lovely Anita and have a drink with her? I have some work to do.”

_Shit._ Sam thought fast. “Mr. Arias, I can see I’m going to have to be blunt here.”

Arias stopped just short of the James Bond-wannabe cart. “Yes?”

Sam continued walking, swallowed his pride, and took a seat in the cart. “How much do you know about Tony Stark?” 

Arias slid into the drivers’ seat, but didn’t start the cart. “I’m listening.”

“Man’s a disgrace. Got all the money in the world, act like he somethin’ ‘cuz he can fly that damn suit around. He ain’t shit. I might not mind bein’ a rich man’s toy if there was somethin’ in it for me, but there ain’t. Not with Stark.”

The shift leader began to scream frantic orders when he saw that none of the cameras in the area of Mr. Arias’s office were being monitored. He pulled the radio from his belt and shouted a hasty command into it before turning back to the other two guards on the shift and continuing his stream of instructions. He finished that before reluctantly pulling his phone from his pocket. This call to Mr. Arias was one he most definitely did _not_ want to make.

Anita made almost no noise as she rifled the drawers of the desk. She was helped by the fact that there wasn’t much in them. However, in the bottom drawer of a credenza behind the desk, she found several weird metallic objects carved with strange symbols. They were clearly important to Arias, because the drawer was lined with a thick, soft padding, into which niches had been designed to fit the objects perfectly. She photographed the objects, too. 

“So this is about money?”

“In part,” Sam answered bitterly. “But then there’s Steve Rogers. And _there’s_ where the real problems begin.”

Sam had to get creative. He had half an hour to fill. Poor Steve. Sam got _very_ creative. So creative, in fact, that Arias ignored his phone the first time it rang. Captain America always seemed so wholesome. Clearly not, if Sam’s stories were to be believed.

The guard ran as fast as he could up the stairs to the floor where Arias had his private rooms. The guy in the control room had made it sound like the end of the world, but the guard couldn’t see anything out of place up here. Still, he cocked his weapon and flipped off the safety as he approached the door. 

Anita heard the noise a while before the door opened, another of the gifts that made her an outstanding S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Her excellent hearing and lightning-fast reaction time meant that, when the guard stepped into the room, she was sitting on Arias’s desk, looking at the door. Well, _sitting on_ the desk would be inaccurate. She was more _draped over_ it. 

__The guard sucked in his breath, seeing the extremely shapely and beautiful woman half-lying across the front of the carved, Brazilian rosewood desk, one leg bent with her heeled sandal on the desk, the other casually hanging off the edge. The pose was more than a little lewd, and she apparently recognized that, because immediately upon seeing that he was not Arias, she let out a little shriek and sat up, jumping to the floor._ _

__“Who the hell-“ She sputtered in Spanish._ _

__“You’re not supposed to be in here, this is Mr. Arias’s personal office,” the guard fired back, trying to cover his own surprise and discomfort. “What are you doing in here?”_ _

“Well, I should think that’s fairly obvious, _pendejo_. Where’s Mr. Arias?” The woman’s arch manner didn’t quite cover her embarrassment. 

__“Obviously not here. Get out.”_ _

__She shook her hair and stomped in a huff toward the door. As she passed the guard, she made a point of sticking her nose in the air, as though she was far superior to the likes of him, even though she’d just been caught in a fairly compromising position. The guard wasn’t fooled, mostly because it wasn’t the first time this very thing had happened to him._ _


	13. Has That Ever Worked?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony sleeps through the whole thing. Steve and Joss make a deal. Sam and Anita make plans while flying back to New York. Bruce and Catherine have a very physical argument.

Tony slept through the flight from Atlanta back to New York, snoring and mumbling to himself. 

Steve had intended to, and had actually begun to, re-review all the materials the team had gathered and sent to each other. But he couldn’t concentrate. Not with images of the previous night constantly intruding into his thoughts, and the woman who played the starring role in those images sitting so close to him he could feel her warmth. He felt a small twinge, though, to see that Sharon was having no difficulty concentrating. She was reading an Email from Dr. Mulready that Steve had tried – valiantly, dammit – to get through, but had only been able to understand enough to discern that things were bad.

Steve was a smart guy, and quite capable of learning whatever was necessary to deal with the threat. The problem was, he kept catching a faint scent of the body wash Sharon had used in the shower that morning, which he knew because he had been intimately involved in the process. He looked at the way her hair fell over her shoulders, and remembered how it felt, softly tickling his skin, when he’d awakened with her in his arms. How was he supposed to keep his mind on documents in Spanish, and in code on top of that, or pictures of a weird-looking machine that made no more sense to him than the documents, when he could feel Sharon’s thigh against his? At the hotel, she’d been in her own room, videoconferencing with Director Coulson and other higher-ups at S.H.I.E.L.D. much of the day, and had her nose in her laptop, like it was now, the rest of the time. When Steve’s attempts to distract her had become too successful, she’d sent him to his own room. 

He’d understood, but enough was enough. He reached over and shut the lid of her laptop.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, blinking and shaking her head with the disorientation that comes from being pulled from deep concentration. 

Steve gave her what he hoped was his most winning smile. “That screen’s had enough of your attention for today. My turn.”

An adorable frown came over Sharon’s brow for a moment, and her lips parted to object, before her eyes truly focused on Steve and his comment registered. Once it did, the sides of her mouth curved up around whatever she’d been about to say and the frown melted into reluctant amusement. “I was reading Dr. Mulready’s email.”

“I know,” Steve said, taking her laptop from her and sliding it under his seat. “I’ll give you the short version. That weather’s not natural.”

“You don’t say,” Sharon replied drily.

“Actually, I don’t. Dr. Mulready does. In way too many words.”

Sitting back up, Steve looked expectantly at Sharon. “You’re the one who told me I need to relax more. Get my mind off things.”

“I did. I said that.”

“Well, there’s a problem.”

“What problem?”

“Now I’m having trouble concentrating on threats to the world. I keep thinking about you.”

Sharon’s expressive face practically glowed. “You do?”

“You’re much more interesting.” He grinned and slowly began to lean toward her.

“Holy shit, that’s lame. Has that line _ever_ worked?” Bucky’s mocking voice interrupted the moment.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut. “It was about to,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

Bucky, standing next to Steve’s seat, looked down at Steve and Sharon with a heartless grin. “Come with me. I need backup.”

“For what?”

“To convince Joss to use that levitation thing she can do. She won’t listen to me.”

“Smart girl,” Steve muttered.

“Wait, Joss can levitate?” Sharon interjected with surprise. 

“ _She_ doesn’t levitate, she can move _things_. With her mind. She thinks it’s something to be ashamed of. Thinks the government’s gonna come lock her up.”

“Well, there are some people who would like nothing better than to see all mutants rounded up,” Sharon noted. 

She could have sworn Bucky straight-up growled. 

“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Steve muttered, standing and putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky led them back to the table where Joss was sitting, looking agitated and nervous as she tore strips off the label of an empty plastic water bottle.

“You know what the best thing about working with Tony Stark is?” Steve asked, keeping his eyes on Joss but turning his body to lift up the top of the credenza across from the table to reveal a hidden bar that lit up when he opened it. The space included several padded, square cells, in each of which sat a bottle of liquor. On the other side was a hatch, which he also lifted, to reveal a built-in refrigerator, full of different kinds of beer. 

Joss laughed at the unexpectedness of the compartment. “Nice!”

“He’s an absolute pain in the ass,” Steve said, “But there are compensations.”

Bucky took the seat next to Joss and caught the bottle of beer Steve tossed him, flipping off the lid with his metal hand. Sharon pulled a bottle of wine from a lower cupboard in the credenza and began to search in the drawers next to it for a corkscrew. 

“You like white wine, Joss?” She asked. “Tony gets this Sauvignon Blanc from a guy in Bordeaux. This is from the vintner’s private reserve. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted.”

“Sure,” Joss answered, smiling uncertainly. 

Steve sat across from Joss and Bucky, handing Bucky his beer. Without a word, Bucky flicked off the cap and handed it back. “So Buck says he’s trying to get you to use your ability.”

The look she threw at Bucky showed Steve he hadn’t been exaggerating about her reluctance. 

“I never have. I don’t want to.”

Sharon handed her a glass of wine. “So you’re telekinetic?” She asked, her voice neutral, her face showing only interest.

“I… Not… I can move things. But I _don’t._ ”

“Well, why not? I’d kill to be able to do that,” Sharon replied, taking her seat next to Steve. “You never get all comfortable on the couch and realize the remote’s across the room? And just…” She wiggled her fingers toward the other side of the jet, smiling.

“No.”

“Well, I don’t know about using it to get the remote, which I would absolutely do, by the way,” Steve grinned, “But I was thinkin’ that could be pretty handy in a fight.”

“Yeah, you said that earlier,” Joss said, perking up a bit. “How?”

“Lots of ways. Throw stuff at people. Take their weapons away.”

“Nudge their guns so they miss what they’re aimin’ at,” Bucky suggested.

“I don’t know if I can do any of that.”

“Well…” Bucky prompted, setting the water bottle she’d been playing with in the center of the table.

Joss scowled at the bottle, shifting uneasily in her chair. Not looking at him, she asked in a monotone, “What do you want me to do?”

“Um… just see how you can move it. Can you push it across the table?”

She did. 

“Can you throw it?” Steve asked. “Just toss it to me.”

She did that, too, albeit clumsily. 

“It’s interesting that you don’t move when you do that. Wanda –“ Sharon stopped herself. “Do you know who Wanda Maximoff is?”

“Of course,” Joss answered.

“She has to make motions to direct her energy. You could do all kinds of things without anyone even knowing it was you doing them. That could come in handy.”

Steve and Bucky both nodded with interest. 

“What about people?” Bucky asked. “Can you use it to hit me? Or shove me?”

Joss looked at him intensely for a moment, but nothing happened. “Apparently not,” she said sheepishly.

“Still, you could hit him _with_ something,” Steve suggested. 

The empty plastic water bottle flew across the table and bounced off of Bucky’s forehead. But it wasn’t Joss who tossed it. It was Steve. Bucky just shook his head with a look of resigned annoyance. 

Sharon, on the other hand, was intrigued. She picked the bottle up from the floor where it had landed and set it back on the table. “Try it,” she said. “This could be useful.”

Bucky caught Joss’s eye, but said nothing. Her expression didn’t change as they all watched the bottle leave the table and bounce off Steve’s forehead this time. 

Bucky put an arm around her and squeezed as they all laughed. “Oh, we are gonna have some _fun_ with this.”

“I don’t know, you guys…”

Steve was still chuckling as he put a hand on Joss’s. “Look, nobody’s going to make you do anything. None of us are going to tell anyone else, either. I just think you might want to give it some more thought. Maybe instead of thinking your ability is something to hide, consider that it might be something to use to help people.”

Sharon held up her glass to Joss. “I don’t know what the Secret Service is like. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that S.H.I.E.L.D. actively looks for people with special abilities. Something to think about.”

“Oh, man…” Joss sighed as she shook her head. “Look, I appreciate what you’re saying, but I’ve never wanted this. I hate it. I only told Bucky because… Well, actually, I didn’t tell him. He kind of figured it out.”

“So why’d you tell me?” Steve asked.

“Because I had to. Once Bucky knew … Well, I don’t get the sense you guys keep secrets from each other. I couldn’t ask him to keep mine. So if you were going to learn I’m a… I can do things, I thought you should hear it from me. Before I got on this plane, so you had a choice.”

Steve nodded gravely. There was a lot about that answer that he could respect. 

“There’s something else,” Joss said to Steve. He gave her is full attention and waited.

“I know President Burke insisted that you work with the Secret Service at that event, and it’s only the purest circumstance that I’m here, because of what happened. But… I was responsible for President Lattimore. And if these phenomena aren’t natural, that means he was murdered.”

Bucky started to say something, but she turned her face to him and put a hand over his where it rested on the table. “I know there’s no way we could have known, and nothing I could have done. At least, in my head, I know that.”

She turned back to Steve.

“But my job was to protect him, and I failed. Being a part of finding his murderer is the only thing I can do to mitigate that failure. I owe him that. This is personal for me now.”

Steve nodded again. “I understand.” He turned to Sharon. “Can we ask Burke and Coulson to detail Joss to S.H.I.E.L.D. for now?”

“Consider it done.”

Turning back to Joss, he said, “Then, here’s my proposal. There’s a team meeting the day after tomorrow. We’re going to share everything we know and come up with a plan. Stay in New York. Come to the meeting, and we’ll plug you in somewhere. I can’t promise what it’ll be-“

“I’m not asking for a starring role. I just want to be involved.”

“Then you will be.”

“Thank you, Captain. I appreciate that more than I can tell you.”

“Two conditions.”

“Name them,” Joss said, as though the idea that she might object to any conditions was ridiculous.

“First, call me Steve. Second, think about what I said, about your ability. Maybe do some experimenting, find out what you’re capable of. It can’t hurt just to learn what you can do. Then, if you still feel the same way, we’ll never talk about it again. We’ll all forget we ever heard about it. Deal?”

Joss still looked a bit dubious about using her ability, but said quietly, “Deal.”

She was looking at her glass, taking a drink of wine, and missed the look that passed between Steve and Bucky.

*****

The jet that brought Sam and Anita back to New York was the same one that had brought them to Marathon Key. This time, however, there were ten passengers, and nobody was in a partying mood. Those who weren’t asleep were nursing hangovers or, in the case of two guys, actual wounds that spoke of a somewhat serious brawl. Sam guessed they’d made up, however, because they were reliving the fight blow by blow, laughing at themselves and each other and toasting with no doubt medicinal cocktails. 

Sam wanted to talk to Anita about what they’d found out, and he could see in Anita’s thoughtful expression that she did, too. But even with the engine noise, it was too dangerous on Arias’s jet. Instead, they napped for a while, hand in hand. 

When Sam cracked his eyes open, it was fully dark outside the jet and Anita was thumbing through a magazine next to him. “I used to be able to party,” he groused drowsily.

“You did fine,” she grinned. 

Sam rubbed his eyes, groaned, and sat up. “What time is it?” 

“About eight. We’ll be on the ground in half an hour.” Anita closed her magazine and looked at Sam. “You’re cute when you sleep.”

“You’re cute when you’re awake.”

To Sam’s surprise, given some of the things they’d done in the past seventy-two hours, she actually blushed. “Good to hear.”

“You’re very beautiful, you know,” he said, serious now. Moving closer to her so that he could speak quietly enough that the engine noise should cover his words, and anyone looking would simply see a couple whispering to one another, he murmured, “When all this is over, I’d like to take you out on a proper date. Dinner, dancing…”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“And, in the meantime, I was wondering…”

She smiled her dazzling smile at him, causing his synapses to short out temporarily. “Yes?”

“Well, we got the meeting day after tomorrow. So you’re gonna be in New York, and I’m assuming you’ll be staying at the Tower?”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“Then, I thought, if you want, you could, uh, stay with me. I have an apartment I stay in when I’m there, and, you know, it’s nice, and we could, you know, stay there together, and I- I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s cool, I mean, God knows Stark’s got plenty of rooms to stay in, I’m sure he’d -”

“I’d like that,” Anita said, mercifully answering before Sam did himself some serious harm with his nervous fumbling for words.

“Oh. OK, yeah. Cool. All right.”

Like him, she leaned close so that her words could only be heard by him. “Not that it’s not adorable, but you don’t need to be nervous. I like you, Sam. I want to spend time with you. Maybe without any cameras this time.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. No telling what Friday sees.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Sam touched Anita’s face lovingly, hardly able to believe this exquisite, highly capable woman was here beside him, agreeing to stay with him in his apartment in Stark Tower. The way she dropped her eyes and smiled almost shyly made their kiss all the sweeter when their lips met. Sam couldn’t help but contrast this moment with their first, incendiary night together in the villa on Marathon Key. 

*****

There wasn’t much more Bruce and Catherine could do without Tony. The three had agreed on the essentials of the weather and the machines, anyway. Now they were in a holding pattern, waiting for Bruce’s samples from the epicenter of the earthquake in Zambia, and for the team meeting where they’d put everything together and hopefully figure out the missing piece. And, of course, come up with a plan.

Right now, Bruce and Catherine were sharing another bottle of Tony Stark’s phenomenal wine, sitting across from one another in deep, comfortable chairs in the common room. They were trying to brainstorm ideas about who, or what, might be using the energy from the machines to create the destructive phenomena. Although it now seemed beyond dispute that Jarman Arias was behind it all, they were at a loss as to what “it” was, or why. Thus far, their strongest theory was that there were one or more other machines they hadn’t found yet, transforming the energy into storms and earthquakes. Something mobile that could use whatever machine was closest, maybe? 

A companionable silence fell between them when they’d exhausted their theories. Bruce lifted the bottle from the low table between them inquiringly, and Catherine stood and took the few steps toward him to reach out her glass for a refill. She didn’t return to the chair she’d been sitting in. Instead, she took the chair right next to Bruce’s. Neither commented, but it was uppermost on both their minds.

“I know it’s a bad situation, but can I tell you how much I’m enjoying working with you again?” Bruce asked timidly, his eyes studiously on his wineglass.

“Me, as well, Bruce. We always did work well together.” She held out her glass toward him.

Clinking it with a small grin, he said, “Yeah. We did.”

“I’m glad you called me.”

“I had no choice. You know more about this stuff than anyone else. It had to be you.”

“That’s probably an exaggeration, but I’m glad nonetheless. I wondered whether I’d ever see you again.”

Bruce sighed quietly. “You weren’t supposed to.”

“Yes, so you decided for both of us. I’m glad it didn’t work out that way.”

He looked up at her face. “Nothing’s changed, Cathy. I’m still dangerous.”

“Bollocks.”

Bruce waited for her to say more, but she simply sipped her wine, her face expressionless. “That’s a masterful argument, Dr. Mulready.”

“Did you want a masterful argument? Would it do any good? Because I’d be happy to lay it out for you, but if your mind’s still made up, I can’t be arsed.”

“My mind’s still made up.”

“Next subject, then.”

For a few minutes, they sipped in awkward silence, both thinking their own thoughts. “If it makes you feel any better,” Bruce murmured after a while, “I’ve missed you.”

“No, Bruce. That doesn’t bloody make me feel any better. I’m not even sure you’re entitled to say that, since you’re the one who bin-bagged me. Let’s just drop it.” There was now a bite to her comments that told Bruce she wasn’t over him any more than he was over her.

“C’mon, Cathy, you know I had to. You know why.”

She set down her glass. “Like I said, it’s good to work with you again. I’m going to bed. Good night.”

Bruce sighed and shook his head slightly as he listened to Catherine’s footsteps retreating across the room. He took another drink – a rather hefty one – as he heard the door to the stairway open and close. He knew that she would be muttering to herself as she took the stairs to the floor where their apartments were. He had a love/hate relationship with that particular habit of hers. It was cute as hell, but she was also spewing annoyance about _him_. Apparently, he could still get to her.

Which was the dangerous thought that had him rising from his chair, the slight buzz from the wine making itself known as he did. He followed her, purposely not thinking about it. Even as he took the first steps, he felt his body begin to hum with an excitement he hadn’t felt in years. Since that last day with Catherine in her office, in fact. He was about to take a chance with her but, strangely, it didn’t feel like that. It felt more like giving in to the inevitable.

He caught up to her as she left the stairway and entered the hall to their rooms. He’d been right. He could hear her voice, soft but percussive, as she went down the hall with a definite stomp in her walk. He couldn’t hear the words, but he was definitely being quietly savaged. He smiled involuntarily.

She saw him as she stopped at the door to her apartment. Her eyes flashed with irritation as she nodded curtly and opened her door, apparently assuming that he would be going into his own apartment. He didn’t. Instead, he put a hand on her door as she turned to close it, and pushed his way past her before she could do anything about it. 

“Bruce-“

“I wonder if Tony stocked this room with any wine,” he said over his shoulder, moving toward the small kitchen nook. 

“If you wanted wine, there was still some in the bottle.”

“I know, but I didn’t think to bring it with me.”

“Just go get it. Don’t you have any wine in your own apartment?”

“Actually, I do, but I’m here now.”

“And about to leave.” She opened the door and waved a hand toward the hallway. “C’mon. On your bike.”

“A-ha! Gotta love Tony.” Bruce turned to her with a smile, ignoring her request for him to leave and holding up a bottle. “Maybe not as good as what we were drinking, but-“

“Bruce, I don’t want any more wine. I want to go to bed.”

“Good. That’s what I want, too.”

“We’ve had this conversation already, remember?”

He set the bottle down on the counter and started walking slowly toward her. “Do you know what your problem is, Cathy? You’re too absolute. You’d give up the opportunity for us to spend the night together – which you want as much as I do – just because it’s not perfect. Well, nothing is.”

“I never asked for perfect. But what we had was pretty bloody good, if you remember.”

“It was fake. You didn’t know what I was.”

“More bollocks! I knew exactly what you were. What you still are. I’ll admit that you had a fairly significant secret that I wasn’t privy to, but the minute I learned it, you buggered off without even giving me a chance. I think it was _you_ who didn’t know _me_. You just assumed I couldn’t handle it-“

“He would have hurt you, Cathy.”

“For a brilliant scientist, you’re a bleedin’ eejit, you know that? The Hulk saved my life. That man would have kicked seven shades of shit out of me if he hadn’t appeared. He did nothing but protect me, and get me to help.”

“He destroys things. He hurts people.”

“People who are trying to hurt him, or those he loves. Nobody else.”

Bruce had reached Catherine, and tentatively reached out a hand to push the door closed. She let him.

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong. Do you think I haven’t been paying attention? He makes news, Bruce, whatever he does, and I’ve a keen interest. He’s never hurt someone who didn’t need hurting, and you know that.”

“He could,” Bruce retorted, now standing chest to chest with her, looking down into those flashing, emerald-green eyes. He put his hands on her waist and pulled her flush against him.

“You don’t know that. You never have.” Her arms wrapped around his neck and she tilted her head while they leaned their faces in toward one another. “Your problem is that you’re a self-flagellating arse, as I’ve said before now, and you think you don’t deserve to be happy.”

“Well, your pro-“

“Shut it.” 

Their kiss was hard, and immediately insistent. At first, the meeting of their wet, invasive mouths was enough, far more intimate - and honest - contact than they’d allowed themselves since seeing one another again. Neither of them were able to keep from moaning with the pleasure and relief of giving in to their attraction.

“I love you, you bloody fool,” Catherine muttered against Bruce’s lips.

“I love you, too…” 

This time, Bruce wasn’t going to be exercising any kind of patience. He had none. He was a little shocked at himself, the way he was already pulling at her blouse to untuck it from her slacks, but when she slid her hands down and began to unbutton his shirt, he felt her undo only two more buttons before she pulled roughly at it. He did the same, so that they pulled each other’s shirts up until they realized their arms were entangled. Catherine gave an impatient, frustrated grunt and let go of his shirt to tear her own over her head before helping him pull his off. 

He backed toward the sitting room, pulling her with him as they continued their assault on each other’s lips and mouths. He’d meant to reach down and pick her up, but she apparently misunderstood and, when he bent down, she pushed him to the floor and was quickly on top of him, grinding against him.

“I missed you… I love you…”

He lost no time beginning to undo her belt, kissing her back as he did and loosing a loud groan when she found the perfect angle with her hips. She didn’t immediately help him get her slacks off. Instead, she leaned over him, sucking at his lower lip while she moved against him. 

“Why do you have to be the only man who kisses like that?”

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, unhooking her bra and beginning to run his hands across her now bare back, already fully hard and rolling his hips against hers.

“Bastard…”

Bruce laughed into their kiss and rolled her off of him, leaning up on an elbow to work her slacks and panties down her hips. She reached down and began to unbuckle his belt, but he moved out of her reach as he lifted his lips from hers to strip her slacks down her legs, taking her footwear with them. When he moved to lie beside her again, she pushed him to his back impatiently and attacked his belt again, yanking his pants, boxers and footwear from his body even faster than he’d removed hers.

“I knew you wanted me,” he teased, rolling over onto her with no further preliminaries.

“Too fucking right, I do,” she growled, moving her hips and legs to envelop him. She threw her head back and let out a little scream as he entered her, uttering his own cry.

“Aah, fuck, Bruce…”

“I love you, Cath… I do, I love you so much…”

“Just shut up and fuck me, Banner, I don’t want to hear it right now.”

The sound he made was somewhere between a groan and a growl. He shifted weight to his knees so he could speed his movements and deepen his thrusts, which her reaction told him was exactly what she wanted. 

“Tough shit. I love you, and you know it.”

“Fat lot of good that does me, when you won’t let me be with you.”

Bruce was well on his way to losing control of his grunts and groans. It took him several breaths to get out, “So fucking stubborn…” 

“I hate that there’s no one but you,” she complained, on a moan. He could feel that she was tensing, moving against him with definite emphasis on hitting a particular angle. 

He rolled them over once again, lifting her on top of him so that she straddled his hips and was in control of their rhythm. It didn’t matter anymore; as long as she didn’t stop, he was going to come in seconds, no matter what else she did. 

“Yeah? Well, I love it,” he gasped as best he could. 

“I’ll bet you do,” she hissed, and those were the last coherent words she spoke for quite a while. She cried out and mumbled disjointed words in her ecstasy, letting Bruce know that she was as close as he was.

“Do it, sweetheart,” he moaned. “Come. Do it now…”

As soon as he felt her start to shake and heard her sharp intake of breath, he plunged over the precipice with her. He had never thought about it before, but he didn’t know how soundproof these apartments might be. He spared a tiny thought of gratitude that none of the rest of the team was around just then, and let himself shout as loudly as he felt like.

A solid five minutes later, Catherine was still melted bonelessly over him, practically purring with satisfaction. And she was still angry.

Bruce held her with one arm across her hip, his hand gently caressing her buttock. With the other, he ran his fingers through her short, jet-black hair, feeling the slightest damp of sweat at her hairline. “I love you, Cathy.”

“Fuck you, Bruce,” she murmured.

“You first,” he chuckled, and rolled her over onto her back, lifting up on his elbow so that he could kiss her while he fondled her. She didn’t argue, and they didn’t make it off the sitting room floor and into the bed until much later.


	14. I Love You, You Imbecile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody has sex. Well, almost everybody. Mostly smut. I'm so ashamed.

Tony Stark was so anxious to get back to his lab that he’d arranged for a helicopter from the airport to the tower. Not that anyone minded, especially Joss, who was actually relieved not to have to maintain a neutral expression riding the limo bus again. Steve just appreciated getting Sharon back to the tower, and alone, more quickly. 

He looked out the window at the city passing below, lit as brightly as day, for the most part, just in different colors. He felt Sharon pressing full-length against his side, their hands clasped, and realized that he was assuming that she’d be staying with him. They hadn’t been able to talk about it on the plane, because they’d ridden the rest of the flight sitting around the table with Bucky and Joss, talking and laughing. And they couldn’t talk about it now, because they’d have to do so over their headsets, which were connected to those of the other four people on the chopper. 

In some ways, it felt like things with Sharon had barely begun. Steve felt hesitant and timid about anything that suggested moving things forward, afraid that they’d reach a point where he felt more for her than she did for him. But things between them had also been brewing for a long time. They had worked together, and gone to events together, for months now. Now, everything just felt so right with her that he sometimes forgot how little time had passed since their relationship had become… The word that came to his mind was serious. Mostly because he didn’t want to use the word sexual. Because it wasn’t just sex. Not for Steve. 

When the helicopter landed on the pad at the Tower, Tony wasted no time getting into the building, undoubtedly going straight to his lab. A couple of Tony’s staffers had met it and begun to help the pilot unload the team’s gear. Among the items was a metal-sided case that looked like an oversized suitcase. 

“What’s that?” Bucky asked, pointing to it.

Steve looked, and realized he’d forgotten to tell them. “Oh, that’s all the weapons from the locker on the Quinjet. When they were done photographing the wreckage, they packed them up and gave them to me. You were at the hospital.”

Both Bucky and Joss lit up and immediately made for the case. They looked like kids at Christmas, opening it right there on the helipad. 

“My Infidel!” Steve heard Joss exclaim while lifting what looked like a knife handle. He moved past them, grinning fondly. If he knew Bucky – and he did – he was going to be busy reuniting with his weapons for a while. And from the sound of Joss’s voice, Bucky was going to have company. 

As a result, Steve and Sharon found themselves alone on the elevator. 

“Those two are going to be trouble together,” Sharon commented when the doors closed.

“Probably,” Steve agreed distractedly. He shuffled from foot to foot, looking at the floor numbers change while he fumbled with the handles of the gym bag of clothing he’d taken to Atlanta. 

Sharon cocked an eyebrow at him. “What’s the matter?”

Steve blinked. “Huh?”

“You’re nervous all of a sudden. Why?”

“I’m not… Do I seem nervous?”

“A little, yeah. It’s kinda cute.”

Steve blushed. “Is it?”

“What’s the problem, Steve?” Sharon’s voice was soft and now tinged with a bit of concern.

“Nothing. There’s no problem, I’m fine. Glad to be back, actually.”

Sharon shifted her tote bag to the arm away from Steve and moved to stand with her side touching his. “Well, then maybe you can help me with a little problem I have.”

“What’s that?”

She looked up at him. “I don’t know where I’m sleeping tonight.”

If Steve had been blushing before, he was positively red-faced now. “I’ve been, uh, thinking about that,” he said, looking down at his hands as they worried the handles of his bag.

“And?”

Steve had needed less courage to stare down superpowered reptiles than to say what he said next. “And I wondered if you’d, uh, you know, stay with me.” 

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Sharon replied, smiling radiantly. 

Suddenly, Steve was no longer nervous at all. Because once again, she’d simply asked for what she wanted, and it was the exact thing Steve wanted. _This woman_. 

The elevator doors opened on the residence floor where Steve’s apartment was, and he motioned for Sharon to precede him into the hallway. Neither said anything as they walked to his door, or even as they made their way through his living room to the bedroom and set their things down on the bed.

“There’s, um… That whole dresser is empty,” he said, indicating. “And plenty of room in the closet.”

Sharon turned to him and tilted her head. “Are you sure this is what you want? Because we don’t have to. I’ll be fine if you-“

“No, no. It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“It’s just… I never, uh… did this before. You know, _stayed_ with someone. A woman.”

Sharon slid an arm around his waist, cupping his cheek in her hand. Her sweet, slightly amused smile felt somehow healing, like she was pouring a soothing salve on his raw emotions. “You are so…”

“What?” He asked softly, but now able to smile a little, too. He couldn’t have avoided taking her into his arms if he’d tried, and he sure as hell didn’t try.

“You’re just so… _good_. I see you giving orders, planning missions… You jump out of aircraft without a parachute. No matter how tired you get, no matter how hurt, you fight until the last enemy is gone and you’re a heaving, bloody mess. You should be hard, jaded. You should probably be a damn monster. But you’re not. You’re this old-fashioned, tender-hearted guy who’s actually afraid he’s going to offend me.”

“Is that bad?”

“Is that _bad_?” She scoffed softly. “No, Steve, it isn’t bad. It’s… It’s… Damn near magical.”

“Magical,” he smiled, tilting his face toward hers.

“Steve,” she whispered, stopping him just before he kissed her. “I love you. You’re not going to offend me. Or move too fast for me. But you should know, you could easily break my heart. So if you want to be careful, be careful about that. OK?”

“I’m not gonna break your heart, Sharon. I promise.”

When he kissed her, he was as gentle as he knew how to be, even though he could feel his blood heating already. She loved him. He couldn’t imagine why, or how he could possibly deserve the love of a woman like Sharon Carter. But he knew that he would never intentionally hurt her. In fact, he realized, he’d rip the limbs off of anyone who tried.

He took his time making love to her, paying attention only to her pleasure, whispering heartfelt compliments and relishing every sound she made. He felt emotional, as though there was something at stake, like maybe if he could make her feel good enough, deluge her with enough sensual satisfaction, he might possibly begin to be worthy of her. 

He didn’t even know that, when he finally allowed himself to give in to his own need for completion, he said her name so reverently she felt tears in her eyes.

*****

Neither Bucky nor Joss had brought anything but weapons on the flight that had crashed in Atlanta. They were just ferrying President Lattimore home, and then Bucky was supposed to take Joss back to Washington, D.C. and return to New York. Despite the reason, he hadn’t been sorry that he got some extra days with her in Atlanta, and he was especially glad that she was going to stay in New York for at least a few more days. But it meant that she didn’t have anything to wear. The sum total of her luggage at this point was two sets of official Avengerswear™ Bucky Barnes sleepwear. 

They’d discussed it on the plane and had a laugh about the fact that she was, at least, not short of things to wear to bed. Bucky found it hilarious that she’d kept the nightgown Tony Stark had given her, and had taken full advantage of opportunities to tease her about it. Joss planned to go shopping first thing the next day. 

The other thing they’d planned was to get the surgical staples out of Joss’s abdomen as soon as possible. Which was why, at that moment, Bucky and Joss were on the medical floor of Stark Tower, rummaging through supply cabinets looking for a staple remover. Bucky casually mentioned the fact that he knew what he was looking for because of the insane number of severe injuries he’d endured when he was Hydra’s captive weapon, as though there was nothing horrifying about that. Joss could only try not to look angry and sickened at what he’d been through.

When they found what they were looking for, Bucky asked Joss whether she wanted him to remove her staples there on the medical floor, or down in his rooms. She swallowed. It hadn’t occurred to her that he would be removing them. It made sense; she didn’t know how to do it, and it would be much easier for him to do it than for her to do it herself. She also didn’t know how to object, or even whether she really wanted to. She did know, however, that Bucky hated anything having to do with doctors or medical facilities. He’d just spent the better part of two days enduring a hospital just to be by her side; she wasn’t about to make him put up with any more. So they went to his apartment, which was on the same floor with the room she’d stayed in previously and was assigned again. 

Joss lay on a creamy leather couch, head on a pillow against one arm, with her white oxford shirt unbuttoned up to her bra line, and her jeans undone and pulled down on her hips to reveal the long line of shiny, silver staples. She felt exposed and vulnerable, which was somehow deeply erotic. She knew that Bucky would never hurt her or take advantage of her, and she also knew that there was nothing she wanted more than for him to put his hands on her. There was a tension in the air that showed itself in the stiff, awkward way that both of them were speaking and the frequent nervous laughter as Bucky knelt beside the couch with the little metal tool in his hand. It looked to Joss like a very simple fingernail clippers.

“Is this gonna hurt?” She asked, looking down and realizing that there were a _lot_ of damn staples.

“Not really. It can pull a little, and you’re healed around these staples pretty good, so… It might pinch a bit. Let me know if I’m hurting you. Here, I’ll just do one so you can see what it’s like.”

Bucky slid the two little teeth of the tool under the visible part of a staple and pushed down on one side of the tool with his thumb, which brought a third little tooth down between the first two, and bent the staple into a V. That lifted the two sides out of Joss’s skin, and Bucky then discarded the staple into the package the tool had come in. “See? Easy.”

“Yeah. OK, that’s no big deal.” 

The fact that removing the staples wasn’t a big deal, itself, became somewhat of a big deal, because it allowed Bucky to pay attention to the silky skin of Joss’s torso. He wanted to slide his hand down her body, to smooth a finger over the hint of definition between the tight, flat muscles beneath, and especially to run his tongue along the disturbingly sexy indentation that ran from her navel to between her breasts – and don’t even get him started on _those_. And he and Joss were there a while, her laying quietly watching him as he tried like hell not to make a fool out of himself. 

She was having her own troubles, seeing the little wrinkle between his eyebrows as he concentrated, and the deep blue-gray of his eyes. She damn near swooned when he pushed a lock of his dark hair behind an ear. She couldn’t help but look at his lips, which were really too beautiful for a man, but somehow insanely masculine with his square jaw and facial scruff. Those lips had been kissing hers – was it really just a few hours ago? – on a continuous loop in her mind since it happened, and that wasn’t making it easy for her to just lay there, clothes pulled away from most of her body, while he slowly made his way down her torso. 

“Ouch!” She hissed, jerking upwards as he came to a staple that was particularly fond of its current position.

“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

“No, I know, it’s OK. It was just kinda sharp. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“I know. Been there. You OK to go on?” His blue eyes met hers and she just about flinched again.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m OK,” she almost whispered. He bent down to the next staple. 

By the time all the staples were removed, both Bucky and Joss were fighting arousal they didn’t know how to acknowledge. Especially when, unable to resist, Bucky ran a hand from her belly all the way up to her chest, stopping just short of her breasts. She sucked in her breath and their eyes met. 

“That’s better,” he murmured.

Joss looked quickly away. “I should, um…” she began, and moved to sit up. Bucky helped her. They suddenly found themselves in the same position they’d been in earlier that day, with her sitting and him kneeling in front of her. 

This time, when their eyes met, Joss couldn’t look away. Neither could Bucky. All at once, he realized that her flushed cheeks and slightly dilated eyes meant she was feeling the same things he was. His desire doubled.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her lips just a little pouty as she unconsciously began to lean toward him.

In response, with his flesh hand, he cradled her face, his thumb under her jaw and fingers splayed across her cheek as he closed the distance and fit his lips to hers. 

It felt exactly right to be kissing this man with whom Joss had been spending so much time, becoming more and more attached with everything he said and did. His beauty, too, was changing for her. Whereas before, she’d been deeply attracted to the handsome face, the exquisitely-formed and chiseled body, now overlaid on those still-very-present qualities was the experience of being the one he was smiling at, seeing his expressive face react to something she herself had said. She knew now that he was much, much more than simply the Winter Soldier, deadly grace and steel. He was also a real man, kind and gentle and caring, who kissed like the raunchiest and most carnal angel ever created.

It was all here in this moment. She was alone with him, now kneeling together on the floor, kissing and being kissed in a way that promised that her most sordid fantasies might have fallen short of the reality. All she had to do was exactly what she wanted to do, what she was doing, opening her mouth to him and sliding her tongue along his, letting him direct the angles and depths of their kisses. Arching into him as he slid that magnificent metal hand inside her still-mostly-unbuttoned oxford to stroke her back. She could follow her body’s demands, and the definite suggestions Bucky’s body was giving her, and experience the night of her life with a man who was pretty much everything she’d ever dreamed of.

And that was exactly the problem.

It was one night. Maybe a few. A handful of nights with a man she’d been fantasizing about for months, whose reality, it turned out, blew her fantasies all to hell – she’d never imagined he’d taste so fucking good, for one thing – that would rock her world and ruin her for all other men. And then she’d go back to her real life, and he’d go back to being Bucky Barnes, supersoldier. She’d go back to her mass-produced little one-bedroom apartment in D.C., and he’d go back to helicopters, private jets, and an apartment in fucking Stark tower. Joss loved her job, and she was proud of what she did. She was basically happy. But she was ordinary with a capital “O”, and he had his picture on damned pajamas. He was a fucking _superhero_ , for fuck’s sake, he was routinely seen on the news fighting aliens and robots and shit with the Avengers. She was routinely _not_ seen on the news, although she was there, somewhere behind the President with her hands folded in front of her and an earpiece snaking out from her collar, seemingly doing absolutely nothing.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t continue to pretend that she was someone who could possibly matter to Bucky Barnes, let herself actually think it for a little while, when the fact of the matter was, she was completely insignificant. Worse, much worse, she was a damned mutant, and now he knew it. The idea of going back to her humdrum little apartment, her drab and uninteresting life with her humiliating secret, would be intolerable once she actually let herself experience a little of what it would be like to actually matter to Bucky. 

Which is why she gritted her teeth and took her arms from around him, putting her hands on his chest to separate them. She stood shakily, unable to avoid noticing the surprised hurt in his pretty, pretty eyes. They were both panting a little, which she used to fake a little laugh. 

“Sorry, got a little carried away there,” she mumbled, turning to move toward the door. 

“Joss, what-“

“Thanks again for taking those staples out. Glad that’s done. I’m beat. I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Wait-“

She reached the door and tried to open it, but realized that it was locked and had to take a moment to figure out the mechanism. Of course it would be electronic; this was Stark Tower, after all. Bucky was standing behind her before she got the door open.

“Joss, wait a second. Please.”

She started to say something flippant, to get out of there before the damn tears she could feel coming actually formed. But she made the mistake of turning around and looking at Bucky’s face. His, deeply troubled, concerned and anxious face. 

“Did I do something wrong? Whatever it was, I’m sorry. I understand if you want to leave, but I wish you’d tell me what-“

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Bucky.” Here came the fucking traitorous tears. “I’m just tired, and I need to get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“C’mon, you’re crying. I know I did _something_ -“

And then she was out the door and practically running toward the door of her room, tossing a supremely fake-sounding “Good night” over her shoulder. Which left Bucky standing, open-mouthed and confused, watching her go. He’d really thought she liked him. It sure felt like that, when she’d been kissing him back. But he’d certainly messed up _somehow_ , because he’d made her cry and run out of his apartment like her ass was on fire. He felt like a prize idiot. He felt like President Lattimore, leering and pawing at Joss, making himself ridiculous and annoying her. Yeah, he had most definitely lost his touch.

*****

Clint lay on his side, watching Natasha stare at the ceiling. He could feel, through the hand stretched out on her stomach, that she was calm and relaxed. But he could also see in the line of her brows that whatever thoughts had her in their grip, they weren’t pleasant.

“Tasha, come back,” he whispered.

She turned her head slightly, acknowledging with a grin that she’d been far, far away. “Do you think we should go say hi to the others?”

“I think we should stay right here.” He pulled her close, reveling in the fact that she instinctively snuggled her body into his. 

They’d heard the helicopter, which had caused Natasha to start thinking about what, if anything, they should say to the others about how things had changed between herself and Clint. Which led to memories and misgivings, as always. Voices, Russian voices, telling her that trust is fatal, that emotions are for the weak, that love is for children. The face of another man, now long dead, shining with adoration as he slipped a ring on her finger. The stupendous effort of maintaining a clean, ice-cold absence of emotion as, mere weeks later, she’d shot him in the forehead as he came toward her, arms open, smiling in welcome. For some reason, the hat she’d worn to the airport that day as she’d left Abu Dhabi for her next assignment.

She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her mind to clear, breathing in the warm scent of their bodies as she pressed her face into Clint’s neck. There was nothing she could do about the shiver that wracked her frame as she clung to the man she would love with all her soul, if she had one.

She didn’t know when he started stroking her. He’d been so soft and gentle, so slow and unassuming about it, that she was wet and moving against him before she even became conscious that it had begun. Years of denied want remained unsatisfied within her, even as many times and ways as they’d made love already tonight. Now she again made a stupendous effort to control her emotions. Only this time, it was her bone-deep terror she had to deny, and her overwhelming love that she let loose. She trembled with the effort, and with sensation, and with the emotion itself, so much more powerful than she was. 

If her fingers, and her arms, and her legs, hurt him as she clung so desperately to him, Clint gave no indication of it. He paid attention only to the near-chant of her voice, telling him over and over that she loved him, that they were stronger together, that she would die for him. He surrendered to the sweet, poignant ache in his heart as she surrendered her body to him, wanting him on top of her, directing their movements. She wanted – _needed_ \- him to take control for both of them. In all the time they’d known one another, he’d never seen that in her, except when they were together, like this, as naked emotionally as they were physically. And only very, very rarely, even then. The first times they’d made love in Talinn. On Eleuthera, when she’d told him she loved him for the first time. And now.

*****

Sam Wilson had a choice to make. Well, he didn’t, really, but he felt like he _should_ have. He could sit down with Anita and share all the information they’d gathered since they’d last been free to speak about it, or he could drag her into his bed. The team meeting wasn’t for another day, and Anita was right here, right now. So, yeah. Not really a choice. 

When they stepped into his apartment in the Tower, he turned the lights on, for the first time using the settings in the little panel by the door he’d initially laughed at. Sure, he’d played around with them, but he’d never had a use for anything but the “Standard” setting until now. Now, he had a definite use for the “Soft” setting. 

He smirked at her once they’d tossed their small amount of luggage into his bedroom and kicked off their shoes, taking his phone from his pocket and dropping it into the dock. She watched him touch a few things on the screen before the speakers hidden throughout the room began to play the most sultry, soulful music Sam had on his phone. 

Anita didn’t need an invitation. She glided over to him, drifting into his arms as, at the same moment, he began to move. Part of the reason Sam Wilson had so completely mastered the EXO-7 was that he knew his body and was in absolute command of his every movement. He was a natural dancer, graceful and fluid, but he also knew exactly what he was doing. There was no hesitation or extra motion. He knew where he wanted his feet to go, how far he wanted to bend or twist, how he needed to move to let Anita know where they were going next, and his body simply made it happen. Dancing, for Sam, was so instinctive that he could pay very little attention to the steps and focus on his partner. Which he was very much doing. 

The look on his face was that of a man who _knew_ he was talented, and was enjoying using that talent. But Anita was well aware of the smoldering lust just underneath. He looked damn near predatory. She wondered what kind of a look she was giving him, and could only hope it was more “ _Yessssss, Daddy_ ” than deer in the headlights. Because she was feeling pretty much equal measures of both. Still, she was also a very talented dancer, which meant that she was able to follow him, flowing across the floor with ease and making sure their bodies made as much contact as possible, even though most of her mind was on very different aspects of what was happening with her body.

She was the one who first began to remove clothing. Not that she wasn’t enjoying the living hell out of their sultry dance, but their moves had gotten progressively more lewd with every song, and she needed more skin on skin contact. The Bachata Sam had chosen had become increasingly sexy the longer they danced, until she was grinding indecently on his knee every time he slipped it between her thighs, and he was running his hand fully up her body, caressing her breasts, every time he dipped her back over his arm. They somehow found a way to work the dance, moving in time with the music even as she slid his shirt from him. He was definitely working it when he slid his hands down her body, past her hips, to her thighs, then brought them back up, lifting the short skirt of her sundress so that he could grasp her ass, using his hands to direct the obscene movement of her pelvis against him. 

They kissed each other, but only in passing, when the dance steps brought their faces together. As Sam began, after a while, to slide his hands up Anita’s body, bringing the fabric of her dress with them, they continued to move to the rhythm, even turning and travelling across the floor, until he pulled the dress over her head, tossing it out of the way without losing eye contact. Then he spun her, so that she ended up with her back to his chest, straddling his thigh. They spent a long time like that, her head thrown back against his shoulder as he ran his hands over her, somehow still dancing even as he stroked her breasts and nuzzled her neck. It was no trouble for him, with his long arms, to slide his hand inside her panties and finger her as she moaned, then slip the lacy lingerie down her hips, so that they fell to the floor and she could kick them away. 

That was when he turned her around again, their lascivious movements taking them toward the wall just outside the bedroom door. He stopped a few steps from it, quickly relieving himself of his jeans, keeping his eyes on hers the entire time. He danced her a few steps until her back was to the wall, grinding his pelvis against her to the rhythm of the music as he kissed her deeply, groaning with the need they had stoked. As a new song began, she lifted one leg and wrapped it around him, stroking one hand down his chest and abdomen, to grasp his cock and position them so that he plunged into her and began to move in and out of her still in rhythm with the libidinous beat of the music. 

Sam didn’t stand a chance of lasting until he could make Anita come in this position. He didn’t even know if she _could_. So he reached his hand between them, sliding it down until his fingertips reached her clit. “Show me,” he murmured against her lips.

Before the song ended, they were both crying out in fulfillment.

*****

Bruce wasn’t in the least surprised that, when he woke her somewhere in the middle of the night, Catherine was still mad. Not that it meant she stopped him from what he’d awakened her doing, because Bruce could teach a doctorate-level class in oral sex, and Catherine was no fool. But it did mean that, for every compliment or sweet nothing he murmured to her, she responded with a breathless curse. Even when she told him that she loved him, which she did frequently, it was never in isolation. There was always something added, something like “damn it” or “you imbecile.” 

He’d somehow forgotten she did that, or how adorable it was. He’d also forgotten about Catherine and angry sex. He’d tried to snuggle up to her after the intense climax he’d brought her to. She would have none of it. She grabbed the arm he wrapped around her, turning furiously toward him and using it to pull him onto his back and then pinning it to the mattress with her hand on his wrist. If Bruce was entirely honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he could actually have gotten away. Not that he tried.

“Don’t you dare bloody try to cuddle me, you selfish yob,” she grunted, throwing a leg over him and impaling herself on his cock. “We are not a happy couple!” 

She now had his other wrist in her hand, pinned to the mattress to the side of his head. She set a brutal rhythm, scowling down at him. “Fucking gorgeous, aren’t you? All puppy eyes and those damn kissable lips,” she growled as she brutalized his lips with hers, making sure to thoroughly invade his mouth with her tongue.

“Damn… Oh, my Cathy…”

“Don’t you ‘my Cathy’ me. Of course I’m fucking _yours_. What bloody choice do I have when I love you like this? But it’s bloody rude of you to call me that, when you’re not fucking _mine_.”

“I… Fuck, Cathy…”

“Well, you’re mine right this minute, aren’t you? As long as I do this. So maybe I slow down.” She did, and Bruce practically wailed. She whispered now. “Maybe I slide off of you, like this, so you’re barely inside me at all, hmm? And if you lift those hips one millimeter, Banner, I swear I will slide all the way off and leave you hanging.” He stopped where he was, lowering himself back onto the mattress with a moan. 

“That’s it. You made all the decisions out there. But right here, right now? _I’m_ making the decisions. And as long as I don’t let you come, I can keep you right here, where you fucking _belong_ , damn you, with me.”

“Fuck, you feel so good! I love you, Cathy, I love you so much…”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, kissing him again, suddenly all softness. “I love you. All I want is you…” 

“Cath, I gotta-“

It was the wrong thing to say. 

“I know,” she crooned evilly, lifting up to put her weight on her forearms and drag her breasts across his chest, moving just fast enough to tantalize him, but not fast enough to push him over the crest. Not yet. “I know you need to come, Bruce. But you’re going to stay with me. You’re going to lay here, just like this, and let me fuck you the way _I_ want to. And I know it’s hard, I know you want me to let you up so you can fuck me, but I’m not going to. I’m going to keep on, just like this. So slow… And it’s driving you crazy, isn’t it? How good it is, how deep…”

Bruce’s breathing became shallower, his body tightening. 

“That’s it,” Catherine whispered. “I can feel it, you’re right on the edge…”

Bruce let out an inarticulate groan as the first tendrils of pleasure began to drift through him, drawn out unbearably by the languid pace at which she rode him. 

“That’s right… You’ll have to wait for it… I’m just going to keep fucking you so slow, make you wait until it comes to you, just like you make me wait for you…”

Bruce was now holding his breath, willing the slowly building threads of electricity to twist together, his entire existence stripped to Catherine’s voice and the unbelievably slow orgasm coursing through him. The sensation grew, moving faster now, although she didn’t change her rhythm as she slid up and down on his cock. Finally, when he was reduced to whining thinly, desperate for his release to overtake him, the first hard wave reached him and he felt himself begin to spurt into her. With so little friction, it had taken forever, and the tension had built to such a level that he was bucking with the intensity of the waves that slammed into him, broken, stuttering shouts being ripped from him. He was quickly oversensitive from the violence of his climax, but he was still coming for a very long time before it became too much.

“Cath…” He whispered, no strength left to speak. 

She kissed him one last time, sweet and tender. “I fucking hate you,” she purred, then rolled to her side, turning away from him. He fell asleep almost instantly, still smiling.


	15. No Shit, Kermit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast with the Avengers, including a very cranky pre-caffeine Tony Stark. Bucky asks Joss what the problem is, and he does _not_ like the answer.

Tony had been pretty peeved when he got to Banner’s lab the night before and realized that neither Banner nor Mulready were there. Damn it, he’d slept for almost seven hours on the plane! He _never_ slept for that long! He was good to go for the next three days, and they’d already gone to fucking _bed_?

So he wasn’t exactly in a good mood when he wandered into the common kitchen shared by the residences. And he was _especially_ unhappy to see that he was the first one there. That meant he had to make the coffee. God knew, Tony had made his share of coffee, but he vastly preferred that it already be waiting for him when he wanted it. 

He was standing, cursing the fact that even a postmillennial coffee maker still fucking _drips_ , when Sam and Anita came dancing into the kitchen. Literally dancing. Tony, seeing their glowing faces and hormone-soaked smiles, snarled. Literally snarled. He made a mental note to call Pepper in Washington - if his coffee cup _ever_ finished filling – and demand that she come home immediately. In the back of his mind, he acknowledged that Pepper usually just called his demands cute and did whatever she was going to do anyway, but he very pointedly did not pay attention to that thought. 

“Good morning, Tony!” Sam practically sang as he and Anita reached the kitchen. Anita began to take inventory of the available raw materials to make breakfast, while Sam gave Tony a hearty, manly slap on the shoulder. 

Tony, in turn, gave Sam the finger, and the dirtiest look he could conjure before caffeine. Sam just laughed, as though Tony hadn’t meant that with every fiber of his being.

At long last, Tony’s cup was full and he slipped it out of the machine and substituted the carafe under the drip. After decades of perfecting that maneuver, he didn’t lose a drop. As he shuffled his bare feet over to the table and sat cuddling his cup in both hands, Sam and Anita began bustling – actually damn _bustling_ – around the kitchen, happily beginning to make breakfast for everyone in between kisses and inappropriate touches. True, Tony was sitting slumped over, blowing into his cup, but he could still see them.

“That’s unsanitary, you assholes,” he growled. Again, they seemed to think he was joking, and laughed merrily. That did it. Tony let go of his coffee cup and pulled his phone from his pocket. Pepper needed to get back before he did something even _he_ couldn’t fix.

The next to arrive in the common area were Steve and Sharon. Together, holding hands, and looking so sweet Tony accidentally typed “Now, dammit!” at the end of his text and hit “send” before he could stop the reflex. Great. Now, on top of everything else, he’d have to find time today to buy Pepper some jewelry. 

Tony actually put his hands over his ears to block out the cheerful greetings among the two couples in the kitchen. When they were mercifully over, he reached out and picked up his mug, taking far too big a drink of coffee that was still far too hot. He didn’t care. He actually welcomed the burning. It was at least consistent with his mood. 

Steve poured coffee for himself and Sharon and got a gooey thank you for it, even though he didn’t even have to fucking _make it himself_ , the unworthy shit. Did anyone thank _Tony_ for making the coffee? Of course not, Tony seethed. He steeled himself for what he knew was coming. Sure enough, as Steve and Sharon approached the large table, Steve noticed him and wished him a hearty good morning, assaulting him with the smile that had sold a million war bonds. Tony desperately wished he could just fry that earnest look off Steve’s face with a repulsor without even looking up. Since he wasn’t wearing his gauntlets, though, he simply grunted.

“Barbie. Ken.”

He slouched lower in his chair as Steve and Sharon took chairs, sitting as close together as possible, at the other end of the table from Tony. They actually had the nerve to begin whispering and giggling. _Whispering and fucking giggling_. Tony continued to work on his coffee and wished he’d thought to bring an automatic weapon with him to breakfast. Rogers was bad enough on a normal day. Rogers in love was just not fucking doable before eight a.m. 

He drank the last swallow on the way to get his second cup of coffee. He squinted his eyes in order to blur the entirely unnecessary sight of Sam standing behind Anita with his arms around her, humming into her ear while she chopped something and beamed. 

That was when Banner and Mulready finally made their appearance. Although they’d had plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep, having already quit work by the ridiculously early hour of ten p.m. when Tony had arrived at his lab, they didn’t look very rested. At least they weren’t cuddling and cooing like everyfuckingbody else this morning, so there was that. 

In fact, there was a decidedly weird vibe between them. Because Banner kind of _was_ cuddling and cooing, and Mulready was sort of letting him, except that she kept giving him disgusted looks and muttering things almost as mean as the things Tony was thinking. But that was weird, too, because there was no venom whatsoever. Although she really did seem mad. What the… Tony gave up. Whatever was going on with them, he didn’t give a shit. He needed them to focus. 

“Where the hell have you been?” Tony growled by way of greeting.

Bruce blinked. “Uh… right here?”

“I got back early, and you had already gone to bed.”

Tony had no idea why that made Mulready roll her eyes and make a growling noise low down in her throat. Weirder still, despite her apparent mood, she was nonetheless starting to brew some of that horrible tea that only Banner drank. 

“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” Banner said. “We’ve got a lot to go over.”

“Yeah, no shit, Kermit. We coulda made a big dent last night. Those are hours we’re not gettin’ back.”

“Tell me about it,” Catherine muttered grouchily, which inexplicably caused Bruce to grin and – was that a _blush_? What the hell was that about? 

Tony frowned, shook his head, and took his second cup of coffee back to his seat at the table where Cap and Sharon quickly and obviously moved away from one another. Tony swore under his breath.

A few moments later, he wished he’d saved that curse, because Clint and Natasha ambled into the room. They weren’t holding hands, didn’t have their arms around each other, and weren’t being disgustingly saccharine with one another. They weren’t even _talking_ to each other, and they both got their own coffee. And yet, everything about them said that they’d spent the night together. _Everything_. From Clint’s perma-grin and frequent self-satisfied sighs to the fact that Natasha actually said good morning to everyone, they might as well have been wearing T-shirts that said, “We just finished fucking and we’ll be doing it again as soon as possible.”

The only good news, other than the fact that Tony’s caffeine finally seemed to be kicking in, was that Barnes strolled in looking like he wanted to stab something. Finally, someone in a reasonably bad mood. He looked so miserable, Tony was almost glad to see him. Best of all, he barely grunted in response to all the indecently sunny greetings aimed at him.

Tony barely had time to wonder where _his_ new comrade was before she appeared, wiping her eyes sleepily. _Huh_. Agent Emerson was undeniably smoking hot, but dang, she looked _rough_. Better yet, she and Barnes pasted on pained, bogus smiles and mumbled the phoniest chipper greetings he’d ever heard as they passed each other on the way to and from the coffee maker. Tony actually smirked into his mug. At last, the morning was starting to look up.

It took Sam and Anita a bit of time to get everything ready, during which time Tony could sort of watch people wake up. Sam and Anita had obviously been up for a while, and Tony couldn’t really imagine a universe in which either Steve or Sharon would ever not be perky, but everyone else needed some time and legal stimulants, just like he did. Meanwhile, since all of the members of the team currently in the Tower were now in the room, Steve gave the sickening schmaltz a merciful rest and shifted into Captain America mode. A plan for the day began to form. 

The scientists’ plan was already set without any need for discussion. They’d be in the lab all day. Clint and Natasha said that they needed some time in the gym, a plan which Steve, Bucky and Sam all immediately endorsed. Although the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Joss would have liked to join them, all three lived in D.C. and had come to New York with nothing so, for them, an emergency shopping trip was necessary. 

The group would meet back here for lunch. Nobody really expected the scientists, especially Tony, to actually make the effort to tear themselves away from their work, but they were invited nonetheless. Almost everybody else would be spending the afternoon in the conference room, trying to make sense of all the information they’d gathered. 

The exception was Bucky and Joss. Steve looked down the table at where they were seated stiffly next to one another, being excruciatingly careful not to touch. 

“Joss, I’ve been thinking about what you said, about needing to be part of stopping whoever killed President Lattimore. And before we decide what that part is, I’d like to know some more about what you can do. So I have a favor to ask.”

Joss swallowed hard. “I can guess what it is.”

“I won’t force you to do it. But if you’re willing, I think you and Bucky should spend the afternoon testing things out.”

Bucky took that stoically, while the idea seemed to make Joss a little green around the gills. She nodded her agreement, albeit unhappily.

Bruce cocked a curious eyebrow. “What does that mean? Testing _what_ out?”

“She’s never worked with us or S.H.I.E.L.D., so we don’t know what all she can do. She’s Secret Service, so we know she’s plenty capable; I just want to know what her strengths are.”

Tony watched Joss react to that, and knew immediately what he was seeing. It was the same amazement everyone felt when they learned what a cool liar Captain America could be. He didn’t have to wait long to learn what Steve was hiding. Joss took a deep breath, straightened in her chair, and said, “I appreciate your discretion, Steve. Very much. But... I think your whole team should know what I am.”

“What does that mean?” Tony heard himself ask. “What are you?”

“Telekinetic,” Sharon answered loudly, clearly cutting Joss off before she could answer. Tony suspected he knew what she was trying to prevent Joss from calling herself, and he appreciated her for it.

“Wait, what?” Clint cried happily, leaning forward to look past Natasha and Bucky at her. “You’re telekinetic?” His genuine smile made Tony think of a kid who’s just learned what’s for dessert.

“I, um…”

“That is so freakin’ cool! Have you met Wanda yet?”

Natasha’s lips twisted as she put a hand on Clint’s arm in an effort to curb his enthusiasm a little. It was an affectionate, amused exchange they’d all seen a thousand times. _Ugh_. Tony thought. They’re _so_ sleeping together.

“Anybody have a problem with that?” Steve asked, sounding pre-emptively disappointed in anyone who did.

“I have a problem with that,” Tony groused. “Why does she get to be telekinetic and I have to build damn robots to bring me stuff and then put up with them when they do stupid shit?”

“How telekinetic are you?” Sam asked with interest, completely ignoring Tony’s legitimate complaint. “Like, what can you do?”

“I don’t know,” Joss muttered.

“That’s what we’re going to find out this afternoon,” Bucky added. Tony was intrigued to see the protective position he’d taken, with one hand on the back of Joss’s chair, his expression a clear challenge to anyone who wanted to object to Joss’s presence on the team. 

No one did, of course. Steve had been right. The few in the room who weren’t wildly abnormal themselves spent most of their time around people who were, and appreciated their gifts. There were a lot of people in the world who hated mutants, but none of them were members of the Avengers team, or worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. And really, in this group, Joss’s abilities were pretty tame.

She smiled shyly and looked around the table, her eyes landing on Bucky last. He was gazing warmly at her, a pleased grin on his handsome face. They nodded slightly to one another, and Joss’s smile widened and reached her eyes.

Whatever was going on with them, Tony thought, it was obvious it wouldn’t be long before breakfast would become simply intolerable.

*****

Lunch was noisy and chaotic and full of laughter. It was also short, because most of the team was anxious to get to the afternoon’s work. Neither Bucky nor Joss was among them, however. They were both anxious as they headed for the stairs down to the floor where the training and workout facilities were. 

Bucky was eager and interested to see what Joss could do. He’d actually have been running down the steps if it wasn’t for whatever had happened between them the night before. He still didn’t understand it, but he was starting to have a suspicion. And he hoped like hell he was wrong. He wished he could just let it go, count dating Joss as something that just wasn’t meant to be. But he hadn’t been able to get his mind off her since the minute they’d met, and everything she’d said or done since then had only increased his fascination with her. He hadn’t been this gone over a girl since Nancy Pomeroy. In 1938.

_Damn_. That wasn’t exactly good news. Bucky wasn’t crazy about the idea of a one-sided crush. And after everything he’d been through with Hydra, he _really_ didn’t like the idea of anything in his life over which he didn’t have a say. Sure, if she’d liked him back, he’d have been perfectly happy to be helplessly smitten. But she apparently thought he was a bum, and if he was right about the reason, then he’d rather never have met her at all.

The bottom line was, he needed to know what he’d done wrong, which meant he had to ask. And that was definitely at the top of his “reasons I’d really rather be fighting a homicidal squid from another dimension right now” list. 

He held the door open for her and followed her into the huge, open space Steve had designed for training and sparring. She stepped in and looked around, then turned to him with an inquiring look, waiting for him to tell her how he wanted to begin. Instead, he stood where he was, a few steps inside the door, running his fingers through his hair and looking nervous. 

“Look, I know you don’t want to do this. You don’t want to use your ability at all. And if you decide you’re willing to try to develop it, if I’m gonna help you with that, you’re gonna need to trust me. So I need to ask… Are we OK?”

“Yes,” she answered immediately, sounding surprisingly certain, and actually a little relieved that he’d broken the ice, although they were still both looking intently at the padded floor in front of their own feet. “We’re good, Bucky. Except that I owe you an apology. I’m sorry I ran out on you last night.”

“Was it because I kissed you?” 

“No. I wanted to kiss you, it wasn’t that.” 

“Then…?” 

When she spoke, the certainty had left her voice as quickly as it had come. Bucky didn’t like the suddenly despondent note that replaced it, as if her true mood had only been hidden under the thinnest of veneers. “I just…” She said softly. “I sometimes forget that you are who you are.”

He nodded slowly. “Are you afraid of me?” He asked in a wooden voice.

“Am I…? No! Of course I’m not- Hell no!” Joss was sputtering in her surprise that he could even think that, combined with her eagerness to squash an idea that was so clearly painful to him.

“You’d be justified. I mean-“

“Bucky, I’m not afraid of you. Yes, I know about the Winter Soldier. I know what happened to you. But I’ve been to the Smithsonian, OK, and having met you now, _that’s_ the guy I see when I look at you. Everything I know about you from the moment you broke free says that’s the guy you are. The Winter Soldier is something Hydra created. It was never you.”

Bucky just stared at the floor for a moment.

“I’m right about that, aren’t I,” Joss said. She wasn’t asking.

“Yeah. That’s right.” 

When he didn’t say more, she said, in that quiet, sad tone, “There’s no part of me that thinks you’re dangerous to me physically. But I... Look, I’m not gonna pretend I’m not attracted to you. In other circumstances, I’d be head over heels right now. But this,” she gloomily indicated their surroundings, “is all pretty far above my pay grade. We’re different kinds of people. I’m not… I’m…” She threw up her hands, at a loss to describe her absolute commonness.

He looked up sharply. “If you’re gonna call yourself inconsequential again, I’m gonna have to call bullshit.”

“I just don’t see how this works. I only see me getting hurt. Or worse.” 

Joss didn’t understand the expression that took over Bucky’s expressive face. If she had to guess, it _looked_ like anger. She rushed to try to take her words back, stepping toward him and looking anxiously up into his eyes.

“No, I don’t mean that I think you’d intentionally... It’s just that you’re famous, and extraordinary, you’re this big hero who saves the world on the regular, and-“

“Are you saying you don’t want to get involved with me because of the Avengers stuff?”

“Well… _yeah_ ,” she said, like it should be obvious. “I mean, the danger part is bad enough, but I could handle that. It’s all the rest of it. You go to Starbucks and your picture’s in magazines. Last week, you were on BuzzFeed’s “hottest hunks” list. Right this minute, there’s a crowd of women in front of this building who -“

“Stop it.” The severity in his voice silenced her immediately. “I get it now. Nevermind.”

He turned from her and stalked to the other side of the large, open room, where the wall was lined with storage for all manner of equipment. For several minutes, he busied himself with taking out a few balls of different sizes and weights, from a wiffle baseball to a thirty-pound medicine ball, and tossing them toward the center of the floor. He added some hand weights, from two pounds up to one that made even Bucky’s arm muscles ripple nicely under his T-shirt when he lifted it. Then he opened the door to what Joss saw was a storage room filled with a variety of training dummies. He thought for a moment, then selected one that was man-sized and shaped, made of some rubbery material that appeared to weigh about as much as a normal man, and mounted on a stand.

She stood behind him, toward the center of the room, chewing her lip in self-conscious discomfort. For ten minutes or more, as he selected and positioned the equipment he wanted, Bucky studiously ignored her, and she could see from his expression and the abruptness of his movements that his anger didn’t dissipate during that time. In fact, he appeared to be nursing it, scowling and huffing from time to time as though whatever he was thinking was just making him madder.

Bucky angry was something to behold. As upset as she was at having said whatever the hell it was that had him _that_ pissed off, she was also entranced. He was magnificent. His beautiful eyes, even though narrowed, had a fire that was hard to look away from. His ludicrously chiseled jaw looked almost sharp as he clenched it. Once again, Joss felt her body reacting to him doing something simple, something he hadn’t even intended to be sexy. She flashed back to her intense reaction to just hearing him say her name for the first time. She was grateful she wasn’t sitting right next to him this time, because although it wouldn’t be obvious how wet she was, she couldn’t hide the way she was breathing. She pulled at her warm-up jacket, trying to be cool as she made sure he couldn’t see how hard her nipples were. 

“All right,” Bucky said stiffly, turning to her and motioning her forward. He’d arranged the balls and weights in a rough line, from smallest and lightest to largest and heaviest. The practice dummy was about ten feet away. 

“Wha-“ Joss cleared her throat as her voice broke. “What do you want me to do?”

She saw him notice that, then give an almost invisible shake of his head. “You said you didn’t know how much weight you could lift. Let’s start there. Just work your way through these, pick stuff up. See how it feels.”

Not surprisingly, given what she’d shown him before, she could easily pick up the first few items. She lifted them, then moved them around in the air a little, and set them back down. Once she worked her way to a ten-pound hand weight, she was in new territory. She had told the truth when she said that she never used her ability. She’d lifted a few household items when, at thirteen, she’d discovered she could. But it had frightened her so badly she’d only ever done it a few times after that, just to see if she still could, hoping the ability would have gone away. In fact, when she’d lifted a glass of water to show Bucky her ability, it was the first time she’d done that in several years. 

She lifted the ten-pound weight, moving it a few feet left and right, back and forth. “Huh,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s just, that’s the heaviest thing I’ve ever picked up, and I can sort of… feel it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Umm… It’s a lot like just picking things up with my hands. The light stuff, I don’t even really feel it as a weight, you know? But this… I can feel myself lifting it. Not anywhere in particular, I can just feel that I’m using energy. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does. Let’s do something heavy. Try the medicine ball.”

She set the weight back down and turned to the medicine ball. As it rose from the floor, she said, “Oof. Heavier than it looks.”

“OK,” Bucky said, a thoughtful look on his face as she moved the large leather-covered ball the same way she’d done the other objects. “Do the biggest weight. That’s fifty pounds.”

Joss set down the medicine ball, and he could see in some indefinable way that she was straining a little. She took a breath and looked at the largest hand weight. It rose more slowly from the floor than the medicine ball had, and hung just a bit crookedly, about three feet in the air. She went to move it to the side, and suddenly it crashed to the floor, thumping dully on the rubber matting. 

She yipped a little, letting out a surprised laugh. 

“You OK?” Bucky asked quickly.

“Yeah. That was weird.”

“Weird how?”

“It was… Let me see.” She went over to the weight, a solid bar with fat, hexagonal weights permanently attached on each end, and bent to lift it. Although she could lift it from the floor, and move it around, the effort it took was obvious. 

“Yeah,” she said, setting it back down and looking at Bucky. “How much weight do you think I could lift, just picking it up from the ground? Maybe a hundred pounds?”

“I’ll be impressed if you can deadlift a hundred pounds. But I see where you’re going. You think you can lift the same weight telepathically that you can physically.”

“Exactly.”

“C’mon. Let’s see.” 

Neither of them noticed that, as they became more interested in their experiments and curious about the results, they’d forgotten to be uncomfortable.

“How much can Wanda lift?” Joss asked as they crossed the room to where two sets of free weights were arranged with the benches side by side, about ten feet apart. 

“Wanda throws trucks,” Bucky grinned.

“Jeez. No wonder you guys aren’t freaked out by me.”

Bucky made short work of clipping plates onto a bar, while Joss admired the way the muscles of his right arm flexed, and the plates of his left arm moved, as he did. 

“Let’s start with seventy, OK? I guess you won’t pull a muscle lifting too much, but there might be a psychic equivalent.” He gave her a crooked grin, combined with a slight shrug, which she returned.

“Yeah, let’s not sprain my mind.” 

He stepped back and watched as she looked at the barbell with a perplexed expression. “Not quite sure how to get hold of it. I guess I just…” 

The barbell shuddered for a few seconds, then rose several inches. Joss’s expression looked to Bucky like the exact expression she’d be wearing if she was physically lifting the weight. Her breathing increased, too. 

“I can’t really… move it around too much…” 

“Put it down,” he said, reaching toward her as if he was spotting her physically lifting the weight. The barbell thudded heavily back to the floor, and Joss looked up at Bucky.

“I think we’re right. I think I can only lift as much weight as I could physically. No throwing trucks for me, I guess.”

“We got Wanda for that, and Scott and the Hulk,” he assured her. “Your advantage is you can be stealthy about it. I’m also wondering whether you could build up your strength, like you could physically.”

“Makes sense.”

“All right, let’s go back over there. I wanna try something.” Bucky led the way across the room to the assortment of balls and weights, and picked up a five-pound hand weight. Turning to Joss, he held it lightly in his right hand. “Can you take this out of my hand?”

She did. 

“Huh. OK. Now I’m gonna fight you for it a little. You try to get it away from me. Let’s see if we can figure out about how hard you can pull.”

“You want me to straight-up pull, or do you want me to twist, or do whatever I can to get it away?”

Bucky smiled approvingly. “That’s where we’re going next. Right now, just pull.”

He thought the little wrinkles between her eyebrows were cute as she tried to pry the weight from his hand, and they both ended up grinning as they wrestled for the weight. She began to shuffle her feet slightly, and reach her forearms out, making grasping motions with her hands.

“What?” He asked as they continued to work against each other.

“I want to grab the weight and put my foot on you, push against you. Like I would if I was doing this physically.”

“Huh. Yeah, I can see that. I think we’re getting close to the break-even point, though, and I’m still holding pretty tight.”

At that moment, the weight pulled out of Bucky’s hand and Joss stumbled backward a few steps, exactly as she would have done had she had it in her hands. It fell to the floor between them.

“OK, that’s good to know. That’s gonna give you away unless you’re prepared for it.”

Next, they practiced Joss pulling and twisting, using whatever motion she could to get the weight from Bucky’s hand. It didn’t occur to either of them to think he might look odd, holding a handweight that appeared to be trying to escape his grasp. They struggled for a while, Joss appearing to be working fairly hard, while Bucky didn’t appear to even be trying. It was a little distracting for her, since it was both infuriating and hot as hell. But it gave her an idea.

Suddenly, the weight flew from Bucky’s hand again, falling to the floor while Joss rocked a little on her feet but didn’t take a step backward this time.

“Hey!” He cried, laughing.

“Ha! Strength is no match for treachery!”

She’d surprised him by ceasing to pull the weight away from him and pushing it toward him instead, which slid it right between his fingertips and his palm because he was focusing his strength on an outward, rather than inward, force. His smile lighted the whole room. Joss found herself a little breathless, which had nothing to do with the tug-of-war they’d just been having.

“Nice move! I _gotta_ see what you can do with a weapon. But first, let’s look at pushing and throwing.”

For the next two hours, Bucky had Joss tossing balls at the practice dummy, which was as amusing for him as it was frustrating for her. Her aim was terrible. She seemed to be most accurate with midweight objects, but even then, it wasn’t pretty. Out of the necessity to save her pride, she’d used her arm to throw several balls at the dummy, just to show Bucky she could hit it. But for whatever reason, throwing things with her mind was going to take practice. 

At one point, Bucky got a thoughtful look on his face, and said, “You’re looking at whatever you’re moving. Do you have to be able to see it? Could you-“

Before he finished his sentence, a softball to Joss’s left and slightly behind her flew toward the dummy. It missed, but it proved the point. “I knew where that ball was, though. I think I have to know where something is to pick it up? Something like that.”

“OK, let’s try. Don’t turn around. That medicine ball is behind you. Do you remember where?”

“No, we haven’t used it in a while.”

“Good. Pick it up.”

Nothing happened. “I can’t find it,” Joss said.

“OK, still don’t look, but let’s see if this works. It’s about six feet behind you, at your four. Got it?”

She squinted for a moment, while nothing happened. But after several seconds, the medicine ball lifted from the ground and sailed a few feet through the air before landing heavily. Bucky and Joss shared fascinated looks. 

“Cool,” he said. “Let’s try something else. Just stay there and don’t look.” 

Joss’s back was to the storage wall. She heard Bucky’s light footfalls and then the sound of him opening a cabinet, then closing it. His footsteps got a little louder and stopped before he called, “OK, I put something on the floor, ten feet behind you at your six. Can you find it?”

Joss could never have explained what she was doing. In large part, it involved imagining the room behind her and something on the floor. But there was an entirely foreign component to it that she could only describe as “feeling” for whatever was on the floor. She was surprised when she found it. She brought it to her, hearing Bucky’s excited, “Yes!” when she did. It turned out to be a rubber weapon, nonspecific, but something like an AR-15. 

Holding it in her hands, she turned around just in time to see Bucky approaching, a few steps from her and grinning with mischievous glee. Without thinking, she stepped toward him and, letting the weapon go with one hand, reached for him as he reached for her. He lifted her off her feet for just a second, then set her down and let her go, backing off a step so they could see each other, laughing and smiling. 

It took a moment for Bucky to remember that, however Joss was looking at him right now, she didn’t have a very high opinion of him. It hurt. He was resigned to the fact that most people would always think of him as a murderous animal who should be, at the very least, in prison. Although Pepper and her publicity staff tried to keep the hate mail from all the Avengers, he ran across the venom anyway, online. He would almost have preferred that Joss think of him as a mindless, vicious monster than as some kind of Gary Cooper, trying to seduce every woman he met. OK, yeah, maybe Bucky had been an operator back before the war, but even then he treated women right. Mostly he’d just been out for a good time, and he made sure he never pretended anything he didn’t feel. The way Joss acted, she thought he was making time with every girl who asked to take a selfie with him.

And what about that, anyway? Did she think he liked that stuff? Being fucking famous, like there was anything remotely good about it? Did she think he agreed to be in those magazine pictures? Why’d she think they were all of him getting coffee, or just walking down the street,

minding his own business? The only pictures he ever posed for were the ones he absolutely couldn’t get out of. The ones Steve made an order. And Steve kept that to an absolute minimum. 

In fact, a few of the people who spewed online hate at him were paparazzi who had reason to. When one of them had the misfortune of getting caught stalking him, taking his picture, that photographer tended to meet the Winter Soldier. Just because Bucky’s mind was clean now, didn’t mean he didn’t remember how to make grown men cry with his facial expression alone. A few whispered words about how easily Bucky could find them, and what would happen if they made him do it, tended to result in unpublished photos and the need for a change of underwear. It didn’t happen much, but it happened, and the threat tended to stick.

It was true that he kind of liked the perks of the job. Private air travel? He was all over that shit. But it wasn’t like the Avengers could find out about a threat and then take the time to book a commercial flight to East Bumfuck and wait for their weapons to roll by on one of those fucking carousels. And yeah, it was nice to have a private place to work out, train, and spar, with all the equipment they requested supplied without question. The security? That was no luxury. It was every bit as much of a prison as the one Hydra had kept him in. He tolerated it because it was an absolute necessity to protect the Avengers from not only those who hated them, but those who thought they loved them.

None of that made him whatever she thought he was. He was still Bucky Barnes, poor kid from Brooklyn who had been drafted into the Army and been through some heavy shit. He was Sergeant James Barnes, too, who had the honor of serving with a man who was worth every one of the million sacrifices he’d made for him, every moment of danger he’d endured with and for him. And who also happened to be the best friend a guy could ever have. He’d been the Winter Soldier, endured all of that agony and now lived every moment with the full weight of that enormous guilt. If she thought he had the time or inclination for celebrity playboy bullshit, after everything he’d been through, she was seeing someone else when she looked at him.

Joss watched the light in Bucky’s face flicker and then fade, and a cold, impassive mask descend. She recoiled as though he’d slapped her. 

Trying to cover her sudden self-conscious embarrassment, and ignore her confusion and hurt, Joss stammered, “I... Um... What next?”

Bucky pointed to the rubber weapon she held. “Hold that on me,” he ordered coolly. “I wanna show you something.”


	16. Subtle Is For Amateurs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wanda Maximoff, Vision, and Scott Lang show up at the Tower. Bucky gives Clint grief about Natasha, and Clint gives Bucky advice about Joss. (Scott's basically just looking for a snack.) Steve has a moment, and goes up on the roof to collect himself. He gets a visit and some good advice. Sam and Anita finish their work early, and go down to the firing range, where competition leads to, um... cooperation. Catherine meets Vision and is completely intrigued with him, while Bruce is completely intrigued with Catherine. After Tony and Vision leave to get ready for a team dinner, we learn that there's a couch in Bruce's lab.

Sometime during the afternoon, several additional team members arrived at Stark Tower. The whole team hadn’t assembled, however. Thor, for one, was completely occupied fighting for the survival of Asgard. He had been briefly interested in the fact that the enemy appeared to be able to control weather, asking with affronted ire, “Who dares to usurp my throne as God of Thunder!”, only to instantly deflate and lose interest when he learned that the phenomena weren’t natural. Dr. Strange hadn’t even taken Steve’s call, instead assigning a functionary to apologize profusely (and to lie entirely unconvincingly), saying that Dr. Strange was currently off-world. Nobody, including Tony, currently knew where Rhodey was. And for whatever reason, Tony wouldn’t even hear of calling on Peter Parker. Steve wasn’t entirely disappointed; that kid really needed to learn to shut up during a fight. 

Bucky wasn’t surprised to see Clint Barton come bounding into the training room with Wanda Maximoff walking sedately behind him.

“Barnes, quit aiming that rubber gun at her. I want to introduce Joss to Wanda.”

Bucky was surprised, as always, by how young Wanda was. Given her abilities and accomplishments, he didn’t really think of her as a kid, but that’s what she was. This time, though, she seemed to have a little more… self-assurance than she’d had the last time Bucky had seen her. Her time away from the team, alone with Vision, was apparently good for her.

“You know this idiot,” Clint said, pulling Wanda past Bucky as she breathed a hurried, “Hi” to him.

“This is Joss. This is who I wanted you to meet. Well, actually, I wanted her to meet you. She’s just learning to use her ability.”

Wanda smiled at Joss. “He says you’re telekinetic?”

Joss flushed a little, clearly uncomfortable. “Nothing like you. I’m just a – I can move stuff, that’s it. And only what I’d be able to move physically. I hear _you_ throw trucks.”

“Only when necessary,” Wanda chuckled. 

“Actually, Joss can do more than just move stuff,” Bucky added. “You guys wanna see something?”

Clint and Wanda stepped together, curiosity evident in their expressions. 

Bucky took a stance a few feet from them, while Joss walked about ten feet across the room, then turned to face him. He held the rubber AR-15 up, as though aiming it at her. For a few moments, nothing happened. Then, suddenly, the weapon twisted itself out of Bucky’s grip and flew to Joss, who caught it. 

“Awesome!” Clint cried.

“He was barely holding it,” Joss said, returning to the group. “We’re still working on that move.”

Bucky clapped Joss on the shoulder. “But we’ll get there.”

Seemingly apropos of nothing, Joss looked at Wanda and said, “I can’t aim.”

“I remember that,” Wanda responded, apparently understanding completely. “There’s a trick to it.” 

Joss smiled, encouraged, and Wanda turned to Bucky and Clint. “How about you guys give us some time to get to know each other?”

Bucky and Clint looked at one another, surprised and a little disappointed, but didn’t argue. Shuffling out of the gym, they climbed the stairs to the residences side by side.

“Looks like you guys made some good progress today.”

“Yeah, more than I would’ve guessed,” Bucky agreed. “She’s a good student, which surprises me. I kinda expected her to fight me. She really hates being a mutant.”

“Can’t say I blame her. Lotta assholes out there.”

Bucky sighed in response, opening the door from the stairway to the elevator lobby for Clint.

“So, I got some weird vibes from you two this morning. Something happen?”

“Not like what happened with you and Natasha,” Bucky responded, smirking.

“Who says anything happened with me and Tasha?”

“Yeah, right.”

Clint’s smile lit his whole body. “I’m in love, bro.”

“That ain’t new.”

“No, but she wants to give it a real try. She’s ready now, and it’s…” Clint could only smile more widely (a little idiotically, Bucky thought, but he let it go), and make a vague gesture that ended with his hand over his heart. 

“Happy for you, dude. Both of you. Maybe tell her to watch it with the teeth, if you’re trying to be subtle about it,” Bucky grinned, pointing to a large bruise with a definite bite mark in it where Clint’s neck and shoulder met. 

“Fuck that,” Clint laughed. “Subtle is for amateurs.”

Bucky passed through the lounge area and into the kitchen. He briefly greeted Scott Lang, who was standing hunched over in the open doors of the large refrigerator, peering into the back. When it became clear he wasn’t going to move, Bucky reached around him for a bottle of water. He held it up to Clint, who nodded from where he’d sprawled out on a couch.

Bucky grabbed another bottle and, re-crossing the room, handed it to Clint. “Better hydrate,” he said. “Between you and Natasha, I’m thinkin’ we’re not talking tame or infrequent.”

“You’d be right about that,” Clint answered, toasting Bucky cockily with the bottle before taking a drink. “But you didn’t answer my question. What’s up with you and Joss?”

Bucky frowned. “She hates me.”

“Yeah, that’s obvious from the way she can’t take her eyes off you.”

“Whatever. Not gonna happen, so…”

“I don’t get it. And if you’re not gonna go for it with her, then…”

“Do you have _any_ idea how many ways Natasha knows to kill you?”

“Hah! You’re jealous. So spill. Dr. Hawkeye is in. Vat seems to be ze problem?” He asked, with the worst attempt at a German accent ever.

“ _Ze problem_ is that we’re – you know, the team – we’re in magazines and shit. And she says all of this,” he gestured around, “is, and I’m quoting here, above her pay grade.”

A look of genuine concern came over Clint’s handsome features. “Yeah. I can see that.”

“I don’t give a fuck about any of that stuff, you know that.”

“’Course I do. But look at it from her perspective. What if you were still Bucky from Brooklyn, and you got a shot with some movie babe? They had movies back then, didn’t they? Electricity? Light?”

“Fuck you,” Bucky grinned.

“Well? You’re such a cocky fucker, maybe it wouldn’t be a problem for you. But, I mean, everything we do is news of one kind of another. Either we’re savin’ the world, or blowing shit up, or takin’ out some nest of bad guys. And you? You’re so disgustingly handsome, you’re news when you fucking breathe. You could have hot and cold running babes, if you wanted. I never seen you take advantage of that, but you could. A lot of normal people are intimidated by all that. We’re… _You’re_ … a lot, dude.”

“She hangs out with the damn _President_! You’re tellin’ me he’s not news?”

“He’s her _job_. You’re talking about her life. Her heart. Whole different thing, man.”

“Well, since I seem to be stuck with you assholes, and this face, I guess that’s that.”

“Not necessarily. Give her time. She’s only been around this shit for, what, like a week?”

Bucky grunted, slouched in the big, soft chair. For a while, they drank their water in silence before Scott, empty-handed despite his extended fridge recon, came and sat with them. After that, conversation turned to other topics, although Bucky was still mulling over what Clint had said.

*****

Steve spent much of the day stewing. There simply wasn’t much for him to do when the work was all in the hands of those more competent to perform it. Once there was an enemy, a force to stop, Steve would be in his element. But right now, there was little he could do. 

With that thought came a familiar, immense, monstrous weight. Steve took a huge breath through his nose and let it out as slowly and steadily as he possibly could. Sometimes that helped. Not today. He glanced across the table at Sharon, who was scowling at a series of printouts, translations of the notes Clint and Natasha had found in the underground bunker in Washington, D.C. Her beautiful face, usually so serenely confident and sunny, now looked as troubled and exhausted as he felt. 

Steve stood, using every ounce of energy he could to appear nonchalant as he scooted his chair back from the table and strode from the conference room. He tried to be quiet as he pushed open the door to the stairwell, then set off to run the ten floors to the roof. 

Exercise usually soothed him, gave him a focus and an outlet for whatever he happened to be feeling. In fact, that morning, he’d channeled quite a bit of his anxiety over whatever Jarman Arias – or whoever – was up to, into a punishing upper-body workout with weights, followed by an hour with the punching bag. Well, punching _bags_. He’d gone through two. Even Bucky had laughingly commented that he was unusually enthusiastic about their sparring. When Steve had told him why, Bucky had simply shrugged, grinned, and retaken his defensive stance.

“Then bring it, punk. You can take it out on me. Just don’t expect me to go easy on you, either.” 

When he arrived on the roof, Steve was barely breathing hard, and felt only the slightest dampness at his hairline. Still, the fresh air, and the wind this high up above the city, were refreshing. He stretched his arms as far over his head as he could, face up toward the sun, breathing in the outdoor air. The roar of the city was soothing in a way he felt no need to explain to himself.

He put his hands on the railing surrounding the roof and looked out over Manhattan. So many people. So many people in the boroughs hidden from sight in the hazy air obscuring the horizon. So many people in other cities, across the country, across the oceans, around the globe. And he was responsible for all of them. He looked down to see the endless line of people hurrying along the sidewalk below, minds focused on their own errands, their own problems and cares, secure in the knowledge that they were safe from invasion or attack, because Captain America was on the job. Well, guess what, Citizens of Earth? Captain America needed a fucking vacation. 

To his annoyance, Steve heard the door from the stairway open and close, and steps scuffing along the rough, pebbly surface of the roof. He sighed deeply and turned his head as whoever it was approached, and was shocked to see Phil Coulson, Director of the new S.H.I.E.L.D., standing next to him. Coulson reached into the jacket of his ubiquitous navy blue suit and pulled out the last thing Steve would have expected: a pack of cigarettes. 

“You’re kidding,” Steve grinned in amused surprise.

Coulson merely shook out a cigarette and handed Steve the pack. 

“I don’t smoke,” Steve said.

“You were in the Army in World War II,” Coulson replied around the cigarette he was lighting. “You smoke.”

Steve surprised himself by shaking a cigarette out and trading the pack for Coulson’s expensive-looking monogrammed silver lighter. “Nice,” Steve muttered as he flicked the flame to life.

“It’s supermagnetic if you know how to activate the switch. It’ll attract and stop a bullet. Hurts like a motherfucker and leaves a perfectly rectangular bruise, but you know. Beats getting shot.”

Steve nodded. “Guess you’ve had to use it?”

Coulson shrugged and let out a stream of smoke. “Some parts of my job suck.”

“Yeah. Same.”

“That’s what I came early to talk to you about, actually.”

“Oh?” Steve asked as they stood shoulder to shoulder, smoking and looking out over the city. 

“You look like shit, Rogers. You sound like shit. Carter tells me you sleep like shit.”

Steve shook his head disgustedly. “Shoulda known you’d have her reporting back to you on me.”

Coulson’s mirthless guffaw surprised Steve. “You think even _I_ could get her to do that? But I can read between the lines, and I’m _very_ observant. I also notice you’re not denying it.”

“No,” Steve sighed. “I’m not denying it.”

Coulson nodded and they smoked in silence for a while before he asked, “Do you know how many employees S.H.I.E.L.D. has?”

“No.”

Coulson blinked. “OK, actually, neither do I, but it’s a lot. A whole building full, in fact, not to mention all the ones out in the field. There are a whole team of avengers, in addition to a number of other members of your team. My point is, you’re not exactly a sole proprietor, Captain Rogers.”

“Never said I was.”

“Really. Huh. Must’ve misheard you, then.” Coulson crushed out the butt of his cigarette and turned to go back inside the building.

“What about you?” Steve called to him.

He stopped and turned around. “What about me?”

“How do you sleep?”

“I sleep like a baby. You know why? Because I know I can’t save the world on my own. So I don’t worry about trying. I recruit the best people I can find, and I make sure they stay clean and loyal. Rumor has it I’m somewhat of a dick about that. A rumor I started, by the way.” 

“What’s your point?”

“What’s my _point_? I should think that’s rather obvious. Either you trust your team, in which case you’re wasting valuable energy worrying, or you don’t, in which case you need a new team. This idea you have that you’ve got the whole world on your shoulders? It’s bunk. And it’s destroying you.” 

Again, Coulson turned around and headed for the stairway down into the Tower. He stopped just as he reached the door. “Oh, and one more thing?”

“What’s that?”

“Figure things out with Stark. You need each other. You balance each other out. This break with him, it’s part of the reason you’re in trouble.”

With that, Director Coulson went through the door, leaving Steve alone with his thoughts, staring out over the city from the roof of Stark Tower.

*****

Sam had thought Anita was special from the moment he laid eyes on her during an operation to rescue a group of physicists who’d been kidnapped by a would-be supervillain. She had a swagger about her, earned through several years of increasingly more difficult missions. Of course, she was also beautiful, with her long, black hair and almond-shaped, deep brown eyes fringed by ridiculously long lashes. More attractive even than her looks was the sense of adventure that bubbled just beneath the surface. 

Today, he was learning quite a bit more about her. Their work at Arias’s villa had proven her to be clever and fearless, but the analysis she’d done of the records from Arias’s bunker was even more impressive. She’d taken about fifteen minutes to crack the code in which the records were written. Once she explained how it worked, it was obvious that it had taken some serious brainpower to figure it out at all, let alone so quickly. Of course, it helped that she was a native Spanish speaker, so there was no added difficulty from the fact that the records were in Spanish. But that didn’t at all diminish the difficulty of what she’d done, and she’d done it seemingly effortlessly.

She had spent the afternoon scouring the records for every mention of something referred to simply as the “resource.” The more she’d worked on it, the more convinced she had become that this “resource,” whatever it was, was the missing link between the energy-creating machines and the destructive phenomena they caused. All afternoon, she had typed furiously on her laptop, taking notes and systematically developing and exploring theories in a systematic way that finally resulted in a series of ranked hypotheses about what the “resource” might be. 

Whatever it was, it was consumed in the process of creating one of the phenomena. Which changed the analysis considerably. Vision had been almost comically animated when she’d delivered her work product to him. Vision would be testing it against all the scientific data the team had gathered. 

They still had over an hour left before the team dinner.

“So, what would you like to do with that hour?” Sam asked, trying his best not to look wolfish. Because he felt wolfish. 

“Actually, I have a great idea,” she answered, and she looked _unabashedly_ wolfish.

Sam gave her a suggestive, crooked smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Stark says there’s a firing range.”

Firing range. Not what Sam was hoping for. 

“Yeah. Yeah, there is. It’s on the lowest level of the building, below the underground garage. You want me to take you there?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Like everything else at Stark Tower, the firing range was state of the art. Sam was curious to see what Anita could do. He knew S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were required to be able to handle multiple types of firearms, and pass stringent quarterly skills testing, but he wanted to watch Anita firing her weapon. He was attracted to talent and skill, and something about the athletic way she moved, and the way he’d seen her she handle her sidearm, suggested that he was going to enjoy this. 

He had no idea.

Sam’s Steyr SPPs were semiautomatic only, he couldn’t very well use them for target practice. For that, he used his Beretta 92FS Inox. He’d noticed that Anita wore a H & K P30, which he had some thoughts about, but wasn’t about to voice them. Not unless she asked. 

He helped her get fitted out with ear and eye protection, and showed her to a firing lane.

“Is it messed up that I think you look hot as hell right this minute?” He asked, grinning mischeviously.

“Probably. But I gotta tell you, I’m struggling with my baser urges right now, too.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow. “You tryin’ to get me all worked up, throw off my aim?”

“How’s it workin’?” Anita smirked.

Sam just shook his head and took his place in the adjacent lane.

Anita smoked him. Absolutely smoked him. Sam was a pretty good shot, but it wasn’t even close. Being competitive, he was initially determined to beat her, then grew tense as she consistently shot exactly what she was aiming at, regardless of distance or complicating factors they threw in. Sam did pretty well when they did a “turn and fire”, because he was always having to aim on the move. But regardless of what they named as the target – center mass, any quadrant, any point level – that’s where Anita sent a bullet. After a while, Sam got over being competitive and just settled into being very, very impressed.

Which, in turn, resulted in Sam becoming very, very turned on. He was immensely grateful that Friday was willing to lock the doors and turn off monitoring when he asked. It really would have been awkward to have someone come in while he was behind Anita in her shooting booth, thrusting into her while occasionally glancing up at the target she’d last used.

*****  
Bruce was a little amused by Catherine’s reaction to Vision. She was absolutely fascinated by him. From the time he’d entered Bruce’s lab, she had been asking him an endless list of increasingly detailed and – in Bruce’s mind - intrusive questions. Vision, however, didn’t seem to object. In fact, Bruce thought, he seemed to be as intrigued by himself as Catherine was. 

Beyond his amusement, though, Catherine’s intense curiosity enchanted Bruce. The enthusiastic glow in her startling green eyes, the heightened color in her cheeks, had Bruce as enthralled with Catherine as she was with Vision. More than that, her questions were brilliant, and displayed her ability to follow Vision’s explanations of some pretty damned esoteric concepts, and extrapolate from them. Catherine’s genius had always excited Bruce. For at least an hour, while he tried to pretend he wasn’t hanging on every word of their conversation, Tony was the only one getting any work done. 

“Yeah, OK, show and tell is over,” Tony finally announced, when he noticed. “Let’s get some damn science-ing done here, all right? Vision, what we need from you is an analysis of what the missing link could be between these machines and the phenomena. How’s the energy being directed?”

Vision nodded and stepped to a worktable where he pulled up his own display and began to work through materials at a pace too fast for any of the humans to even follow the screens as he scrolled through them. Bruce quickly stopped trying; it was giving him motion sickness. 

Instead, he watched Catherine. Her demeanor since they’d reached the lab this morning had been entirely professional, entirely collegial. Even at lunch, which they should probably have eaten in the lab for all the attention they paid to anyone else at the table, she had her head together with him and Tony discussing their near-complete assessment of the machines, the energy, and the phenomena. Her manner toward Bruce was identical to the way she spoke to Tony. Since breakfast, there’d been no hint in her behavior that she and Bruce had spent the large majority of the previous night fucking each other senseless. 

He realized he was half-hard and didn’t need the deep ache in his balls to tell him he’d been that way for most of the day. No surprise there; the last woman he’d been with had been Catherine. He couldn’t blame the poor, starved little guy for wanting more of the first real sex he’d had in over two years. And what sex it had been. He really needed to stop replaying and replaying moments from the night before in his head; it was _not_ helping his current condition. He could still taste her. Her cries of love as she came still echoed in his head. 

If it had just been sex, if he was following his own rules, he would probably have found an excuse to pull her away from the lab long enough to pin her against a wall somewhere, or maybe lay her across a desk. Yeah, he really needed to stop thinking about _that_. The thing was, he _wasn’t_ following his own rules. He replayed her voice telling him she loved him much more often than he replayed her shouting in ecstasy, or growling filthy instructions and praise in his ear. He felt, over and over again, the warm thrill that had filled his chest as he reached for her and she melted into him, murmuring his name in her sleep. 

Two hours later, when evening was falling and it was almost time to the assembled team for dinner, Bruce noticed Catherine hanging back as Tony and Vision left his lab, heads together talking about something even Bruce couldn’t follow. He was shocked to see her sitting on her tall stool, looking at him as though he was made of the Belgian chocolate she couldn’t get enough of. Irresistibly drawn to her as if by some compulsion she was consciously exerting on him, he began to move slowly, tentatively, toward her, stepping faster as he got closer and saw the need in her eyes. 

She slid her hands up his upper arms as he embraced her, spreading her thighs and pulling him in so their bodies were pressed together. A surge of something powerful hit Bruce when he felt her hook her feet around his calves, like she used to do when they’d worked together at Oxford. 

It was weeks later that Bruce understood this was the moment he lost the battle. All he knew at the time was that he needed Catherine’s mouth under his, her arms and legs holding him, like he needed air. More, because he paid no attention to trying to breathe; all he cared about was the way her lips felt on his and the sweet, coffee-tinged taste of her mouth. He didn’t even know he was rubbing his cock against her through their clothes, because he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, and they were both mumbling I love you’s into each other’s mouths, and it was so good and so necessary and so stupendously, irresistibly _right_ that he refused to consider ever leaving this moment, even to come. Which, as it turned out, he didn’t.

She came first, surprising the hell out of him in his blissed-out, love-drunk state. But when she did, he was stunned to realize that he was right there with her. So he simply kept on thrusting against her, kisses so wide-open and invasive there was saliva coating his chin, until he, too, climaxed with a hissed rush of barely-comprehensible endearments. 

Having taken the edge off with that first orgasm, they were able to take a bit of care with one another’s clothing once he led her by the hand to the oversized couch to one side of the lab. Bruce thought, in an indecent corner of his mind, of the other times he’d had sex on this couch – alone and driven by pent-up need – and felt a tremor go through him when he considered that he would be able to look back at this moment at such times in the future, and maybe feel just a bit less lonely. 

Once he had Catherine completely nude, he pulled her down on his lap and wrapped her in his arms. 

“I’ve been hard for you all day. You have no idea…”

“Like hell I don’t – I was getting ready to knock you down and bonk you on the floor.”

Bruce laughed breathily as he lifted Catherine by her hips and she reached for his cock, positioning them so that he slid easily into her, hot and slick. They cried out together with the long-delayed feeling they’d both been craving all day. Bruce had just enough mental capacity left to remember to call out to Friday, asking her to lock the door and stop monitoring his lab. 

They were gloriously entwined, Catherine lying on the couch with Bruce above her, both sweaty and oversensitive, but still going, when Friday politely interrupted.

“Excuse me, doctors, but I’ve been asked to inform you that you are late for the team dinner.”

Bruce and Catherine both groaned in protest. 

“The boss says to tell you that, quote, he will turn on the monitors and project whatever they see in your lab onto the dining room wall in five minutes, and that you should act accordingly.”

“Right wanker, isn’t he?” Catherine muttered. 

“When Pepper’s out of town?” Bruce answered. “Always.”


	17. They're Disgusting When They Explode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers have a team dinner. Bucky and Joss go for a walk.

Dinner was prepared by Tony’s catering staff, which meant that it was a little extravagant. By long tradition, however, it was served buffet-style. That was for two reasons. First, team dinners tended to get a little rowdy, and Steve thought it was best not to give the serving staff any stories to sell to the press. Second, dinner conversation was often about strategy and other things that needed to be kept among themselves. 

Tony always disputed both points. Regarding the first, Tony argued that he was perfectly capable of hiring discreet staff and enforcing nondisclosure agreements. And when he did, Steve always reminded him that it was his staff who had leaked the story about his affair with the British Prime Minister and the pictures of his debauched and drug-fueled weekend with the anchor team from the top-rated morning show in the U.S.

Regarding the second, Tony argued that half the team were spies, and were fully capable of spotting a mole. And when he did, Steve always reminded him of the bombed-out shell of the Triskelion.

Theoretically, everyone chose their own seat in the formal dining room on the residential floor of the Tower. Steve thought that Tony had been surprisingly diplomatic in somehow maneuvering things so that Director Coulson sat at the head of the massive oval table. Steve himself was at the other end. That put Tony to the right of Coulson, a subtle and graceful acknowledgement, especially for Tony Stark, of the politics of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. However Tony had maneuvered that seating arrangement, it made Steve want more than ever to repair his relationship with him. 

Sharon was to Steve’s left, and Bucky to his right, with Joss next to him. Things seemed to have thawed a little between Bucky and Joss since breakfast, Steve thought. He was glad. He liked Joss, and he liked her and Bucky together. He also knew Bucky as well as Bucky knew himself. Steve was the only person who knew just how tender Bucky’s heart was. He didn’t fall for women easily, but when he did, Bucky fell hard. Steve knew the signs, and he was absolutely seeing them now. He didn’t know what was holding Bucky and Joss back, but he wasn’t worried. Steve didn’t know much about women, but he’d been watching them fall in love with Bucky his whole life. He knew what that looked like. It looked like… well, it looked like Joss. 

Sam, to Sharon’s left, was telling a story about how he and his buddy Riley once “tactically acquired” a couple of ATVs and spent an afternoon joyriding through the desert. Everyone at their end of the table was howling with laughter, partly because of the story, and partly because Sam’s delivery was so entertaining. Anita was to Sam’s left, and next to her sat Scott, who was making the story even funnier with his skeptical facial expressions. Probably the best part, however, was the way that Vision, sitting next to Wanda, who was on Joss’s right, kept interpreting Sam’s slang – both military and street – literally. 

At the other end of the table, a lively debate raged about the Battle of Baton Rouge, which the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. had fought the previous year. Director Coulson continued to maintain that their adversary, who called himself Lumbro, had intentionally created the giant, sentient earthworms they’d fought. Tony, however, remained adamant that Lumbro hadn’t been smart enough to accomplish that and had, in fact, been as surprised as anyone. Of course, once he’d done it, Lumbro had proclaimed that creating an earthworm army had been his plan all along, but Tony’s theory was that he’d been trying to create a growth ray and had simply wired it wrong.

“Either way,” Clint said, “I never want to battle worms again. Those things are _disgusting_ when they explode!”

“They also don’t even notice when you shoot them, which is just annoying,” Natasha noted.

“Remember when the Hulk went all Dune and rode around on one?” Clint laughed, pointing at Bruce.

“Matter of fact, no,” Bruce answered drily.

Tony high-fived Clint behind Natasha’s back. “I would kill for video of that! All he needed was a hat to wave around, and he’d have been Slim Pickens at the end of Dr. Strangelove!”

“I absolutely insist on hearing this story,” Catherine demanded, laughing. 

Bruce facepalmed. “I object.”

“Overruled,” Coulson said, and waved a hand toward Clint, inviting him to tell the story.

Sharon’s leg was touching Steve’s under the table, a fact that wasn’t lost on either of them. She was enjoying watching him laugh at Sam’s story, while at the same time noticing, as always, that his laughter was reserved, as though he wasn’t allowed to just let go and enjoy himself. She caught his eye and smiled at him, taking his hand where it rested on the table and squeezing. She happened to be looking at him when, as conversations sometimes do, both came to a coincidental end. Steve looked toward the other end of the table, making eye contact with Tony.

“Speaking of ‘tactical acquisition,’ I’m never gonna forget the look on The Sector’s face when his entire robot force turned on him and gave him the finger.”

Tony broke into a wide smile, filled with childish delight. “That guy was a tool. Nobody out-Starks Stark. He needed to be taught a lesson.”

Coulson laughed louder than anyone else. “It probably would have been sufficient humiliation for The Sector that his robots ended up dismantling his base for S.H.I.E.L.D. But one of the pictures of them all giving The Sector the finger is still my screen saver.”

“Yeah, Cap was pretty pissed at me for a few minutes for leaving the fight to take pictures, but come on.” Scott said.

“I still have some of those robots,” Tony noted. “They buff the floors.”

That got a full belly laugh from Steve, who was looking at Tony with undisguised fondness. “I did only ask you to disable them.”

Tony shrugged. “What would’ve been the fun in that?”

Bucky piped up, “Don’t take that from him, Tony. Captain America isn’t above that kinda thing, himself. In Azzano, he tactically acquired four hundred ice cream bars. Gave one to every guy he rescued from Krieschberg.”

“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Sam groaned. “Even when he’s stealin’, he’s a do-gooder.”

While everyone was laughing about that, Steve and Bucky shared a quick look that spoke volumes about the other things Steve had obtained in Azzano by less-than-pristine means. Blankets, which were hard to come by, because for weeks after being rescued, Bucky couldn’t seem to get warm. A blue coat Bucky came to love, for the same reason. Extra rations, because for reasons they didn’t understand at the time, Bucky was ravenously hungry pretty much constantly. Those things had saved Bucky’s life, and Steve’s unwavering, unquestioning devotion had saved his sanity. And he’d done the exact same things when he’d once again rescued Bucky from Hydra. It had just taken a little longer the second time.

There was no need for words, or for the look to last more than a moment. 

Throughout the meal, Vision was uncharacteristically quiet. From across the table, Tony watched him. He didn’t like what he was seeing. AI or not, Vision reminded Tony of himself when he was distracted by a particular type of problem. The kind where you know the answer, and you want the answer to be something – _anything_ \- else. 

“Hey, Angry Birds,” Tony grunted, tossing a crouton at Vision. “Cheer up, will ya? It’s a party. You’re bringing us all down.”

“I am sorry. I am still working on some questions having to do with the ‘resource’, the missing link between the machines – “

“Yeah, I know what the ‘resource’ is. And I’m a capitalist pig; I don’t pay overtime. So punch out already.”

“Yes. Of course,” Vision said, turning to smile vaguely at Wanda. 

_Shit_ , Tony thought.

Bucky turned toward Joss and Wanda. “How’d it go after you kicked us out of the gym? You figure out the aiming thing?”

Wanda smirked at Joss, holding her goblet of ice water up. “Did we?”

An ice cube rose, dripping, from Joss’s glass, floating slowly and gracefully across the table. It slowed considerably, then briefly wavered before plunking into Wanda’s goblet. “We made some progress.”

Joss turned to Bucky and was rewarded with a smile that rendered her briefly incoherent. All she could do was beam at him, overwhelmed by how beautiful he was and pleased beyond words at his reaction. The moment between them was long enough that Steve and Sharon shared a raised-eyebrow glance, silently acknowledging their mutual belief that Bucky and Joss would find their way to each other.

“Well, if you wanna talk about aim,” Sam announced, putting an arm around Anita, “This is the woman to see. Put me to shame on the firing range a little while ago.”

“That ain’t hard to do,” Bucky muttered.

“Naw, man, this girl is the real deal. I’d put her up against you or Barton anyday.”

“Agent Herrera is the highest-ranked marksman in S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Director Coulson put in. “I could tell you stories about shots she’s made in the field. Of course, then I’d have to kill you, and that’s poor manners at the dinner table.”

Clint raised his glass to Anita in a silent, impressed toast. 

“My demand for a raise will be on your desk in the morning, Director,” Anita said, dipping her head humbly. Coulson simply smiled at her and gave her a nod.

Natasha spoke up, aiming her comments down the table at Sam and Anita. “I want to know what it’s like at one of Jarman Arias’s house parties. Even in Europe, people talk about them. Some of the stories I hear...”

Sam sat up straighter. “Agent Herrera and I were there on a mission,” he said defensively.

“A mission, I would add, for which they insisted they needed some of my best weed,” Tony noted. “And Sam, don’t ever try to act innocent on the job. It’s not a good look on you.”

Sam huffed. Anita merely laughed. “If the stories in Europe say that Arias stocks his parties with celebrities and more booze and food than a cruise ship, they’re true. And I’m also going to have to go to Confession for some of the things I only _heard about_ happening while we were there.”

“Such as?” Catherine asked.

“I’m not sure some are actually anatomically possible, but I did see that rapper, the one who does ‘Ass Onna Fly’? He was… There were… Well, now that I think about it, if I told you at the dinner table, it would be worse etiquette than Director Coulson killing you all.”

“Was that when he was in the cabana?” Sam asked. “And there were all those women wrestlers with him?”

“Yes,” Anita answered, blushing now and taking a long, unnecessary drink of water to cover as much of her face as possible. 

“I think I mighta happened by there a couple times.”

“A _couple_ times?” Catherine asked. “Not sure that qualifies as ‘happening by’.”

Sam ignored the comment, and the guffaws that followed. He frowned a little and asked Anita, “What were they using the plastic flamingos for?”

Her head came up and she looked at him quizzically. “Those were decorations, Sam.”

The table erupted in laughter.

Steve wasn’t sure whether it was the excellent wine, or the chance to enjoy camaraderie with this group, whom he had feared at one time would never meet as friends again, or his brief talk with Director Coulson earlier. Something, though, was making him feel better than he had in a while. The chaotic meal, with so many side conversations and the general convivial atmosphere, the frequent outbreaks of laughter and reminiscences, somehow ironically quieted his mind. 

He looked at the group of people sitting around the table, beginning with Bucky, whose mere presence was the most solid support Steve had ever known. He knew Bucky’s abilities, knew that Bucky would make any mission succeed or die trying, and knew that Bucky would protect him long before he’d protect himself. Looking at Joss made him think about the three newcomers who were part of the team handling the current threat. Each of them brought significant assets to the table that Steve knew he could rely upon in what was to come. Wanda and Vision, of course, were known quantities, both with extreme superpowers and unquestionable commitment to the Avengers. The same was true of Bruce, who provided both superstrength and superintelligence. 

Director Coulson’s tactical and strategic expertise, not to mention his clear thinking in a crisis, were as dependable as the tides. Steve had definitely had his share of struggles with S.H.I.E.L.D. and other authorities interfering in what had to be done, and he would never be free of the effects of the betrayal by Alexander Pierce and the Hydra cancer that had riddled S.H.I.E.L.D. before the Battle of the Triskelion. But Coulson had always been true. Steve trusted him, and by extension, his new S.H.I.E.L.D. as far as he could trust any government organization. Much farther than most. 

Clint and Natasha, of course, were as rock-solid as Wanda and Vision. More so, since Steve had known and fought with them longer. Alone, they were formidable and nearly unstoppable. Together, and as part of the Avengers, they were a big reason Steve really needed to chill the fuck out. He smiled to himself, thinking that. And also because his eyes then landed on Sam, who had turned out to be the best chance meeting of Steve’s life. Sam’s skills and abilities, and the flexibility he brought to the team as another airborne member, were invaluable. But Sam himself was a gift to the Avengers. He kept them hopeful. He had the skills and compassion to help them work through things they encountered that would otherwise crush them. And he was just damn fun to have around.

Which brought Steve to Sharon. He looked at her and squeezed her hand where he held it under the table. She was so much more than the beautiful woman with the irresistible smile he’d first known as his neighbor. She reminded Steve, in the best possible way, of his mother, because she had that same quiet, unflagging strength and an unshakable belief in him. Steve’s mom would have adored Sharon. Hell, _Steve_ adored Sharon. He shivered a little at that thought. 

Since the day she’d lectured him and then seduced him, something fundamental about Steve had changed. Sure, everything between them had changed so much that he already couldn’t imagine how he had ever maintained his distance the way he had. Sure, she was now a constant presence in his mind. But it was more than that. She’d challenged him. She’d kicked at what he thought was a coping strategy and shown it to be a dangerously flimsy delusion. 

She’d also given him the answer, and it was sitting around this table. Coulson had said exactly the same thing: rely on your team. Don’t pretend you can, or have to, shoulder the burden alone. Steve felt oddly emotional as he looked around the table again, his eyes finally coming to rest on Sharon, watching him.

“You OK?” She asked.

“Yeah,” he answered, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “I think I’m gonna be just fine.”

When dinner was over, fairly late, the team stood and began to say their good nights. The muted ding of the elevator was heard through the din, not because it was loud, but because it was unexpected. All eyes turned toward the door, to see Pepper Potts step into the room.  
She graciously returned all the greetings as Tony crossed the room toward her. It was hard to tell whether the expression on his face was more stunned or relieved. Smiling sweetly at the group, Pepper then turned her attention to Tony, who slowed as he approached her, almost reverently.

“I am _so_ glad to see you,” he said hoarsely.

“I know,” she answered, giving him a molten look as she reached out and grabbed a handful of his tie and shirtfront. “Come with me.”

Pepper pulled Tony through the doorway, and very quickly the sound of the doors to the private penthouse was heard. No one saw Tony or Pepper again that night.

Director Coulson excused himself fairly quickly after that, saying that he had some calls yet to make that evening. Everyone else drifted toward their various rooms, trying not to appear as eager as they were to be alone together. 

Soon, only Bucky, Joss, Wanda, and Vision were left in the area outside the dining room. It was really too early to go to bed, Bucky thought, at least to sleep. Besides, he couldn’t get what Clint had said out of his mind, and if he had a chance with Joss, he wanted to take it. Maybe she did just need time. If so, he’d give it to her. But he wasn’t going to waste this opportunity to spend time with her, even if it wasn’t going to be romantic. Yet.

“You know what?” He said brightly. “I’ve been in this building all day. I need some fresh air. What do you guys say we go for a walk? Just to get out for a while.”

Joss nodded. “That sounds nice.”

“Oh, yes, I’d like to do that,” Vision agreed.

Wanda muttered, “No, you wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t?” He asked.

“No. You and I need to finish going over those reports.”

“Oh, yes,” Vision said. He turned to Bucky and said, in an oddly stilted voice, “Yes, I’m afraid Wanda and I need to go over those reports.”

“We’ll see you at the meeting in the morning,” Wanda said breezily, putting her arm around Vision’s and moving toward the door to the stairway. “Good night!”

Bucky and Joss watched them go through the door, and clearly heard Vision’s voice echoing in the stairwell. “I recognized the code phrase. Why don’t we want to go for a walk?”

“Shhh…” Wanda’s voice responded quietly, but not so quietly that Bucky’s enhanced hearing didn’t pick up the whispered, “They need some time alone.”

Joss’s perplexed look told him that she hadn’t heard that. “What just happened?”

“Apparently ‘going over those reports’ means that, uh… Wanda wants to be alone with Vision.”

“Oh!” Joss smiled.

Secret Service agent or not, Joss might have been a little hesitant to go walking the streets of Manhattan in the evening. It could be a little risky in D.C., and she didn’t expect that it was any different in New York. Tonight, however, as she stepped through the lobby door as Bucky held it open for her, she chuckled a little at the possibility of some unfortunate soul trying to mug her with him around. 

“What’s funny?” He asked as they set off at a leisurely pace down the street.

“I was just thinking that I probably don’t have to worry about street crime tonight. I don’t imagine anyone’s likely to mess with you.”

Bucky shrugged. “Probably not. But I think you’re still pretty safe. How many?”

“How many what?”

He gave her a look. “I’ll tell if you do.”

Joss smiled when she realized what Bucky was asking. “Four. Three knives. One gun.”

“Yeah? What do you wear on the street?”

She pulled back the side of the jean jacket she wore to reveal a Wilson Combat EDC X9. 

“Huh,” was all he said.

“You?”

“Six. Four knives.”

“I clocked the S&W on your hip. What’s the other piece?”

“Sig P365.”

That led to a pleasant conversation about the relative merits of different handguns, both concealed carry and tactical. They covered several blocks, not hurrying or heading anywhere in particular, just enjoying the cool evening and the bustle of the city.

As they approached tiny Greenacre Park, with its artificial waterfall, they noticed a group of five girls in their late teens huddled together on the steps, giggling and looking at them. For about half a block, Bucky and Joss simply continued with their conversation, both watching the girls curiously but not mentioning them. When they got within fifteen yards or so of the girls, they stood as a group and two stepped into the sidewalk.

Their body language was hesitant and nervous, the two on the sidewalk cradling their phones in their hands and standing very close together as though for support. All of the girls continued smiling and giggling.

“You’re Bucky Barnes, aren’t you?” One of the girls in the sidewalk asked, when they were close enough.

“Uh, yeah.”

The girls who had remained on the steps stood now, too, and stepped up to huddle together with the others in front of Bucky, giggling now more than ever. They all had phones in their hands.

“Can we take a selfie with you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky said, clearly uncomfortable but trying to be polite. 

Joss, backed away as the girls surrounded him. None of them even appeared to see her. They began to talk over one another, telling Bucky how cool they thought he was and that they were “such huge fans” of his while he stood helplessly shifting from foot to foot, grinning awkwardly and trying to keep them from getting behind him. This was going to be fun to watch. 

One of the girls who had waited on the sidewalk was the first to stand next to Bucky and hold out her phone. He graciously asked if she wanted him to take the picture, since he had longer arms. She breathlessly agreed, suddenly all nerves, while he put an arm loosely around her, held the phone out, and snapped the picture while the other girls took pictures of their friend and Bucky.

“Hey, Bucky, do you have a girlfriend?”

He pretended not to hear the question as he asked the girl next to him her name.

“Who’s cooler in person, Captain America or Iron Man?” One girl asked.

“Don’t be a dork, Brianna, he’s Captain America’s best friend,” another answered for him, following her announcement with a disgusted sound.

“Does Tony Stark have, like, just _gobs_ of money?”

“I guess so, we don’t really talk about it-“

“Jessie, shit! Of course he has gobs of money, everybody knows that!”

The other girls took turns standing next to him, with Bucky patiently taking a picture with each girl while the others whispered, giggled, and photographed the process. 

“We think you’re really great,” one of the girls gushed, and the others hurriedly agreed. 

“Uh, yeah, thanks…” Bucky looked progressively more uncomfortable. He shot a look at Joss, who gave him a mocking smile. 

“I bet you never get cold now, ‘cuz you got frozen so much.”

“Um…”

“I thought it was so cool how you took out that bad guy in Poland with one shot like that. You have the coolest guns!”

“I liked when you stabbed that gross monster with the huge head right in his eye. That stuff that squirted out was so gross!”

A chorus of “Eeeeeeeew!” followed. 

“Hey, what’s the Black Widow like? Is she just a total bitch?”

“Well, no, she’s-“

“I have pajamas with you on them. I wish I would have known we’d see you, I could’ve brought them!”

“Hey, will you take off your jacket so we can see your arm?” A girl with a tattoo of Captain America’s shield on her ankle asked.

“I don’t really… Um… Shouldn’t you girls be at home this time of night?” Bucky’s look at Joss this time was a clear plea for help. She let him see her laugh at him, then waded in. She was, after all, a professional at this kind of stuff. It was a little different with the President and the public, but not much. And a group of horny teenage girls had nothing on a pack of rabid Congressmen.

While the girls objected that they were plenty old enough to be out after dark, Joss slipped smoothly into the center of the mob. She took a stance in front of Bucky, her back pressed against his chest, and one hand behind her on his arm. With that hand, she began invisibly to pull him in the direction they’d been walking. 

“OK, girls, thanks!” She cried, drowning out their giggling and questions as she stepped backward, pushing Bucky into moving. “Thank you so much, but you know, Sergeant Barnes has a world to save, so he needs to get going.” 

The girls loudly voiced their disappointment, but as if held by a forcefield, they stayed where they were as Joss pulled Bucky away from them. She kept her back to him and pulled his arm until he was free of the circle of girls, then slowed down and pushed him to continue walking while she covered his retreat. “Thanks, girls,” she called pleasantly, still facing them to make sure they didn’t follow. Bucky looked back and waved a little, then ducked his head and made tracks while the girls called their goodbyes to him, still basically ignoring Joss, but somehow also compelled to obey her and allow him to leave.

Bucky could still hear the girls frantically giggling and gushing to each other as Joss jogged up beside him, trying to be quiet about her laughter. The girls’ ecstatic comments continued to reach them for a while.

“He’s _so_ cute!”

“Isn’t he just so nice?”

“He asked us all our names! Holy shit, Bucky Barnes knows my _name_!”

Bucky groaned as Joss chuckled under her breath. “It’s not funny. It’s so not funny,”

That just made her laugh harder. “I’m sorry, I’m sure that must be kind of a pain, but if you could’ve seen your face…”

“Yeah, I’m sure it was hilarous. Ugh. Anyway, thanks for the rescue.”

“No problem.”

“How come they just obeyed you?”

“Because I told them what to do,” she shrugged. “Did you see how nervous they were? Nobody really knows the rules in those situations, because there aren’t any. So if you act like you have authority, people usually listen. It only works for a minute or two, but that’s all you usually need.”

Bucky nodded and made a “huh” sound.

“Sorry I laughed. You did kind of look like you hated that.”

“I did. I do. But Pepper says I’m not allowed to pull knives and growl anymore. Which sucks, ‘cuz that at least felt natural.”

“Bet it worked, too.”

“Damn straight it worked, and I don’t know how else to get out of those things. Steve invents emergencies. Scott just takes off running.”

“What does Tony do?”

“Tony? You kidding? He loves that stuff. He stands and signs autographs and takes pictures until finally the _people_ have to find a reason to get away. Clint seems to be really good at it, he’s really cool with people and then he just makes it seem natural to leave.”

“And Natasha?”

“No one has ever approached Natasha for a selfie. No one would dare. Which really pisses me off, actually, because what about me? Aren’t I a deadly Russian assassin, too? I’m scary, right?”

“Absolutely. You are the night.”

Bucky let out a hoot of laughter, which made Joss laugh, too.


	18. Worst Supervillain Name Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team has a meeting. Natasha tells Clint she loves him. He knows that, because he speaks Natasha. Steve tells Sharon he gets it now.

When it was time for the team meeting, those who were sitting around the breakfast table began to filter out toward the conference room on the floor below. Sam ended up having to double back and get Scott, who was still sitting at the table sipping coffee and staring into the middle distance, apparently unaware of the time or that everyone had left. 

Steve was already standing and pacing, like he always did during meetings. Tony sat to the right of his chair, a large mug of coffee in his hand although he was already vibrating. He looked terrible. Pepper wasn’t there; she had a corporation to run, after all, and wasn’t integral to the purpose of the meeting. But Tony didn’t have the look of a man who had spent all night in the throes of passion. OK, he had that look too, but he also looked like a man who had been gut-punched. And recently.

“All right, let’s get started,” Steve said, standing behind his chair at the head of the conference room table. “You all know about the strange energy signature that was detected in several places around the world, followed very closely in time by what looked like natural phenomena. We know now that the phenomena aren’t natural. Sharon, let’s hear your analysis of the documents and notes Clint and Natasha found in the bunker.”

“They were in Spanish, in code, so the first thing I have to say is thank you, Anita, for breaking the code in, like, five seconds, and translating the documents.” 

“It wasn’t hard. It was like having your password be ‘password’,” Anita shrugged. Everyone around the table had heard Natasha explaining how untrue that was, but no one commented. Director Coulson, however, made a mental note. _A natural at decryption. Interesting._  
Sharon continued. “Most of them are instructions for maintaining and running the machine. There’s a lot of technical description, procedures, that kind of thing. The things that stood out were parts that talked about some “resource” that is apparently part of the process. It’s consumed, kind of like fuel for the process, but it’s also involved in creating the phenomena, directing them somehow. That part is the scientists’ domain.”

“We’ll get to that,” Steve said, briefly lighting on his chair. “And the rest?”

“Like I said, the documents are largely technical in nature, having to do with the machine. Like a user’s manual. But there is one page, it looks like maybe an introduction to the step-by-step procedures, that’s different.” It’s kind of a rant, sort of a mini-manifesto, but there’s one paragraph that gives you the gist.” Sharon picked up her tablet and touched the screen. “It says, ‘I am the custodian of this planet. In being a part of my work, you are helping to protect Earth. We cannot afford to leave our safety to those who commune with enemies who would seek to destroy or enslave the human race.”

“Does that mean us?” Clint asked.

“That’s how Anita and I read it. Translation is always tricky, but she says the Spanish suggests that as strongly as her translation.”

“So there’s someone who thinks they’re some kind of hero, protecting Earth because we can’t handle it?” Sam asked. “That’s cold, man.”

“Worse,” Steve replied. “He thinks we’re part of the problem. Thinks we invite invasion because we ‘commune with’ people from other worlds.”

Scott mused, “OK, I’m all about communing with that Gamora chick, but there’s no way I’m communing with a Chitauri.” 

“Oh, _hell_ no!” Sam winced.

“I’d commune with Thor,” Natasha offered.

“Well, who wouldn’t?” Tony asked.

Steve stood. “Can we focus?”

The laughter around the table quieted, but no one looked particularly sorry.

“Dr. Banner. You’re up.”

Bruce stood like he’d been called upon to give a book report in class. In his quiet, calm voice, he said, “The machines are built around a central feature, we’ve been calling it an ‘orb’, which is made of some material that’s not found on Earth.”

“Can _you_ say irony?” Wanda muttered.

“The orbs amplify energy. So what the machines do, in essence, is take in a metric crapton of electricity, and turn it into about three billion metric crapons of a different kind of energy.”

“Let’s just take a moment to appreciate that science has chosen to label a unit of measure the ‘crapton’.” Bucky said.

“Or the fuckton, your pick,” Bruce replied. 

Sam added, “I like shit-ton.”

“Focus,” Steve growled, and Bruce went on.

“That energy is directed _somewhere_ and converted _somehow_ into the phenomena we’ve seen. The earthquake no less than the weather phenomena. In the case of the earthquake, the core samples Director Coulson sent me confirmed that the energy was just directed into the earth rather than the atmosphere. There’s residual energy in the samples as far down as they drilled. Catherine?”

Bruce sat back down next to her as Catherine began. “There have been thunderstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes so far, all following a spike of that energy, and all with very similar signatures. They’re not like the real thing in several ways. They’re destructive, sure, but they’re smaller than they should be, and they behave in ways they couldn’t if they were natural. They come out of nowhere, and they dissipate almost as fast. They’re also sort of… fake-looking, if you’ll forgive my non-scientific terminology.”

“We forgave crapton,” Natasha noted.

“It’s almost like someone who didn’t know much about weather was trying to conjure up their idea of a storm.”

Tony rested his elbows on the table and let his head fall into his hands.

“That storm seemed real enough to me,” Joss said. “I distinctly remember it being enough to tear apart a Quinjet.”

“Yes,” Catherine agreed. “The storms are real. But if you follow the analogy, most people would know in general how a storm should behave. They’d know there should be lightning, and wind, and rain. They’d know a tornado should rotate and suck things up, and that a hurricane rotates around an eye. But not many people know the details of how storms work, and that’s what’s off about these storms. Then there’s this.” Catherine touched the screen of her tablet and a series of photographs appeared on the wall above Steve’s head. 

“What do you notice about these hurricanes?”

“Wait,” Scott said with a confused frown. “Those are two different hurricanes?”

“Exactly,” Catherine cried, pointing at him. “The one on the left is Hurricane Katrina. The one on the right is the typhoon in the Phillipine sea. The only difference is that the fake one was much, much smaller. The shapes are identical. And the inner workings of these fake storms are completely banjaxed. They have windspeeds that don’t make sense, they rotate the wrong way, they form basically instantaneously, last a short while and then fall apart… In short, they cannot be natural.”

“And the energy?” Steve prompted, leaning far back in his chair with his legs out before him.

“Storms, all weather really, are energy. In nature, the energy is created by things like differences in barometric pressure and temperature, the presence of moisture, etcetera. Shoot enough energy into an atmosphere and direct the air molecules to begin to move in a particular direction, and you get weather. That’s the simple version of what these machines do.”

“The earthquake was like that, too,” Bruce added. “Not on a fault line. Waves traveled wrong. Shape of the curve as the energy dispersed was wrong. The earth shook, but that was about it. There was no tectonic movement at all.”

A silence descended over the room as the group digested that information. Tony sighed. It was time. “Catherine’s analogy is more appropriate than you know. The phenomena _are_ someone’s idea of storms and earthquakes. Sit down, Rogers. You’re not gonna like this part.”

That got everyone’s attention, and because Tony was looking at Vision, soon everyone else was, too. They watched Vision stand as Bruce had, leaning a bit forward with his weight on his fisted hands on the table. 

“Dr. Banner has explained that the machines simply create energy, which was used to create the earthquake. And Dr. Mulready has explained that energy can create weather. We did not know precisely how the energy was directed - ‘aimed’, if you will - to create the phenomena. As Agent Carter stated, the process involves some “resource” that creates and directs the phenomena and is consumed in doing so. Thus, the phenomena last only as long as the resource does.”

There were nods around the table. 

“I was tasked with determining what that resource might be. And, I’m afraid, I have.”

Nobody breathed or even blinked. Not one person around the table wanted to hear whatever Vision was about to say.

“There is an eighty-seven point eight two four nine six per cent probability that the resource is, in fact, a human.”

Steve looked stricken. Clint spoke for all of them when he whispered, “Fuck.”

“Indeed,” Vision agreed. “The energy is directed into a person, who then simply uses their mind to imagine a phenomenon into being. We believe that the resource is coached, probably using various media such as pictures and video. That would explain why the hurricane was identical in shape to Hurricane Katrina.”

“Why would someone do that? Agree to get zapped with-“ Bucky began.

Tony growled, “Nobody said they agreed. Or that they knew they’d be ‘consumed’ in the process.”

That got another whispered expletive, this time from several of those around the table.

Wanda asked the next question. “So who’s doing this? Do we know that?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Sam answered. “We know.”

“Go, Sam,” Steve mumbled, waving a hand at him. Vision sat, looking miserable, if that was possible for him. Wanda took his hand and bumped his shoulder with hers.

“Jarman Arias. We know he’s behind this because of what we found in his villa.” Sam projected a photograph of a closet in which one suit of clothing was hanging, almost as though on display, placed in what appeared to be a lighted case designed specifically for storage of that one outfit. 

“Oh, Dr. Strange is gonna be _pissed_ ,” Scott muttered.

“Right?” Natasha said, agreeing. “That’s way too close to his look.”

Joss cocked her head. “What is that, like a uniform or something? Like Captain America’s suit?”

“That’s what we think,” Anita answered. 

Tony asked, “That ‘C’ on the chest. Is that for-“

“Custodian,” the entire table said simultaneously.

“You gotta be kidding,” Tony sneered. “That is, like, the _worst_ supervillain name _ever_! This douchebag made himself The _Janitor_?” 

“English isn’t his first language,” Anita reminded him.

“Obviously,” Tony replied. “Dude needs a publicist, STAT.”

“The cape is cool, though,” Bruce noted quietly. “Purple. Good color choice.”

Clint snorted. “Thought you’d be partial to green.”

“Focus!” Steve shouted as he stood and began pacing. “OK, so this asshole thinks he’s the custodian of the planet, and he’s out there creating destructive weather and earthquakes?”

“Can Captain America say ‘asshole’?” Joss asked under her breath.

“He just did,” Bucky whispered back.

“Why?” Steve continued. “Why would he do that? How does that protect the planet?”

Bucky answered, “Seems pretty obvious, Steve. He’s trying to protect the planet from invasion, right? He doesn’t have weapons, and he knows he can’t outgun us, anyway, if we were on the side of the invaders. So he builds a system to create weapons we can’t fight.” 

Steve nodded and heaved a great sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right.”

For a few moments, no one spoke. Finally, Tony launched himself out of his chair. “Welp, on that cheery fucking note, who’s ready for a break?”

Apparently, everyone was, because they all pushed their chairs back and stood. 

“Meet back here in fifteen,” Steve called out. The only person who responded was Bucky, who muttered, “Got it, Cap” out of long, ingrained habit. Everyone else simply went their own way. For the first year or so, the fact that his orders were only verbally acknowledged about half the time had driven Steve nuts. One of the countless reasons he was grateful to have Bucky back was that now at least someone always responded, to let him know he’d actually spoken. But he’d learned to let it go, because although they didn’t acknowledge him, he knew that, without exception, every member of the team would be back in their seats fifteen minutes from now. 

Steve wandered over to a credenza along one wall where coffee service had been laid out. Tony was just finishing filling his cup. Steve knew he’d drink at least two during the break, and bring another back to the table with him.

“You OK?” Steve asked, putting his hand on Tony’s shoulder.

“You know, I’ll fight sentient earthworms any day of the week, but this shit, sacrificing people like that? That’s seriously fucked up.”

“I know. We’ll stop him, Tony. We’ve put it together now. All we need is a plan, and that’s what we’ll work on next.”

“We’re not just gonna flip this guy the finger, Cap. This motherfucker goes down.”

Steve nodded, meeting Tony’s challenging gaze. “We’ll get him.”

Tony lifted his cup to his lips as he turned away.

“Hey.”

He turned back to Steve.

“This one is big. I’m glad we’re together on this.”

Tony skipped a beat. “I don’t need you to blow smoke up my skirt, Rogers.”

“It’s only blowing smoke if I don’t mean it.”

“Yeah, all right.” Tony sighed and turned away again, muttering. “You’re still an asshole.”

Steve grinned. 

  


Wanda and Joss found themselves side by side, walking the hallway to stretch their legs. 

“You have a nice walk last night?” Wanda asked.

“Yeah. It felt good to get out. Reminded me I’m way overdue for a workout. It’s been a weird couple of weeks.”

“You get used to weird around here.”

“I guess so. Robot armies?”

Wanda shrugged. “It’s the job. So you and Bucky…?”

Joss didn’t say anything to that.

“OK, none of my business. I get it.”

“No, no, Wanda, that’s not it. It’s just… Me and Bucky nothing.”

“Well, get after it, girl!”

“Not gonna happen,” Joss sighed.

“Why not? I’m not imagining all that heat between you two. Don’t tell me you’re not interested.”

“Oh, trust me, that’s not the problem. He’s pretty much every dream I ever had. I get the feeling that once I let him into my heart, he’d stay there. The problem is he’s… Bucky Barnes. And I’m nobody. I don’t think he’d stay interested for long. And there I’d be, with the worst case of ‘the one who got away’ in recorded history.”

Wanda stopped walking and stood, hands on hips, staring at Joss. The scowl on her face said clearly that, if there’d been a truck nearby, Joss would probably need to duck. 

“What?” Joss asked, confused.

“I get that you haven’t known him long, but let me tell you something. If that’s what you think of Bucky, then I agree. You should keep your distance. Because he seriously does not deserve that.”

“I… Said that I think he’s-“

“Shallow? Insincere? A womanizer?” Wanda spat. “Yeah. I heard you.”

“No! I didn’t mean it like that at all! The problem is _me_. I’m so ordinary, and he’s-“

“Look, Joss, I like you. I thought we were sorta becoming friends. So I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you didn’t mean it like that. But I can guarantee you, if I heard it like that, _so did Bucky_.”

Joss stood, stunned, instantly seeing that Wanda was right. No wonder he had been so angry with her the day before! _Oh, no_. She suddenly saw how incredibly unfair she’d been to Bucky, who had treated her like a princess since the moment they’d met. In fact, he’d continued to treat her that way even after she’d essentially called him a sleazebag. Memories of his good-night hug from the night before had been distracting her from the meeting all morning. _How the hell had he managed to make himself hug her when she’d treated him like garbage?_

When they returned to the conference room, Joss was immediately aware of Bucky standing just outside, laughing with Sam and Clint. She saw him look at her and the small smile he gave her made her want to hide in shame. She made herself return it anyway.

Once the group had begun to seat themselves again, Bucky took his place next to Joss and looked closely at her. 

“Everything OK?” He asked softly. 

Joss felt the concern in his voice as an actual, physical pain in her chest. She looked into his grey-blue eyes and tried to hold back a tear. “Yeah, I just need to tell you something after this.”

Steve began to speak at that moment, and the meeting resumed. They ate a working lunch right where they were at the conference room table, planning, arguing, suggesting, and tweaking until by late afternoon, they finally had the rough outlines of a plan.

When the meeting was over, most of the team went to the gym floor. Those who didn’t went to the pool and spa floor, which was just under the roof. Since Bucky went to the gym and Joss went to the pool, they didn’t have a chance to talk even after the meeting was over. 

  


At first, Clint thought that Natasha must be swimming laps with the others, since she hadn’t been in the gym. But when everyone had finished their workouts and sparring, and were leaving to shower before whatever dinner plans they had, Clint went up to the pool floor to find she wasn’t there, either. 

He didn’t know what made him check the roof, rather than her apartment. Whatever had prompted the instinct, it was a good one, because she was there, standing stock-still looking out over the city. He knew that she was aware of him behind her; she was too good a spy not to be. Still, she didn’t turn around.

“Tasha?” He came to a stop half a step behind her, not touching her. Nonetheless, he could feel the tension in her body.

“I just needed a minute,” she said. 

“Figured that. I kind of watched you spooling up while we were making plans. Can’t say I know what it’s about, though.”

“Can’t you?”

He took the last step and pressed his chest against her back, reaching out to place his hands on hers where they rested on the safety railing that surrounded the roof. “No. I can’t. Do you want to tell me?”

She took a long time to answer. When she did, she turned around within the circle of his arms and put a hand on his cheek. He was shocked to see that there were tears in her eyes.

“This plan is too risky.”

Clint would have bet anything, and felt entirely safe, that he would never have heard Natasha Romanoff utter those words about an impending mission. 

He looked at her as he wiped the tears from her face. “No riskier than half the shit we do. Putz like Arias? We’ll kick his ass and still have time to get ice cream.”

“Even a putz can get a lucky shot. Or use one of those machines to send a tornado after you. He could cause an earthquake; you could be crushed by something. And who knows what else this guy’s got?”

“So it’s me you’re worried about. Well, that’s new,” he grinned.

“No,” she said, her eyes wild. “It’s not.”

“Tasha, nothing’s changed just because we’re finally together. There’s no more danger than there ever was.”

“And you’re no less of a reckless dumbass. That is _not_ comforting, Barton.” She shoved away from him. 

“Stop. It’s a good plan. A _great_ plan, especially the parts I thought up.”

“You are gonna get your ass blown into confetti!”

“Well, not if I have anything to say about it. I like my ass. We both do.”

“Fuck! You’re impossible!” She began to crunch her way across the roof to the door. 

“Tasha-“

“Leave me alone. I’m losing IQ points up here with you.”

The door slammed behind her, leaving Clint standing alone on the roof of the tower. He could have followed her, if he’d felt the need to swallow some of his teeth. He didn’t. Instead, he stayed where he was, looking out at the hazy sunset and thinking how gorgeous she was when she was upset. 

Even if he did follow her, he couldn’t help her. Not with this. This was something they’d been through a thousand times before, in different permutations. Usually, it happened _after_ the fight, when she’d get in his face, screaming about some damn fool thing he’d done and how stupid, reckless, unnecessary, insert-your-own-adjective-here it had been. He’d listen, and apologize, as insincere as they both knew the apology was, and eventually she’d yell herself out, dissipating the fear that was the real problem. Sometimes, like now, she’d stalk off, saying that she needed to get away from his stupid face, or that she was going somewhere with fewer idiots, or something along those lines.

The first few times, he’d tried to follow her, wanting to stay with her until she’d forgiven him. It hadn’t taken him long to learn that wouldn’t work. He’d followed her once, just to see where she went and what she did when she stormed off after one of these blow-ups. 

It was a mistake he’d never make again. 

They’d been in Rome, staying in a massive townhouse with several other team members, and he’d had no trouble following her, jumping nimbly from rooftop to rooftop as she stumbled blindly through the narrow alleyways of the neighborhood until she found a small, dark space between two ancient buildings. She leaned her head against it and, from where he watched, he could see that she was holding her arms tightly across herself, gasping for breath as though panicked. She shook so violently he could see it from the rooftop. She stood like that for a long time, finally allowing her terror free rein, before finally calming enough to turn her back to the stucco wall of one of the buildings and sliding down until she was folded in on herself, crouched in the dark alley. Her wrenching sobs nearly forced him from the roof to her side. The only thing that stopped him was the sure knowledge that she would view his witnessing this most private moment as a massive violation of trust. He couldn’t take the chance that their relationship might not survive that. 

This time, on the roof of Stark Tower, was the first time she’d been overwhelmed like this before the mission even started. Nonetheless, all the signs were still the same. Clint told Natasha he loved her by caressing and kissing her, and saying the words over and over. Natasha? Natasha told Clint she loved him by doing this. 

  


Sharon watched Steve as they ate dinner, just the two of them in his apartment. They were both in the mood for a little quiet privacy after so much team time in the last day. Steve was different tonight, she thought. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something about his eyes, and the set of his shoulders, that she couldn’t remember ever having seen before.

“You’re staring at me,” he grinned.

“You’re gorgeous.”

Steve blushed adorably and looked down at his plate. 

“I was just thinking that there’s something different about you tonight.”

“Is that bad?”

“I don’t think so. It feels like it’s something good. I can’t explain exactly what it is, though.”

“I probably can,” he said, looking up at her. “I’ve been waiting. Just standing back, letting everyone else do what they do, not being able to help. I’m no good at that. But now that we know what we’re up against and we can finally make plans to _do_ something about it, I feel like I’ve been in the starting blocks and somebody finally fired the damn gun. Now I can run. This stuff, plans and strategy and tactics, this I know how to do. It’s a big relief.”

“That makes sense. You’ve been saying how hard the waiting’s been. And?”

“What makes you think there’s more?”

“I’m a trained operative, Captain Rogers, don’t insult my intelligence. Plus, you know, I’ve been studying my target for a while, so…”

For a moment, they just shared a smile across the candlelit table. “Well, you’re apparently very good at your job. There is something else. I had a talk with Coulson yesterday. He said pretty much word for word what you’ve been saying, about how I need to trust the team more, not feel like I’m carrying all the load. You guys practice that?”

Sharon smiled and chuckled. “I can neither confirm nor deny that assertion.”

“Well, you’re both right. And today, looking around at everybody, I realized something. I _can_ trust them. I _do_ trust them. And you’ve been right all along. They feel the responsibility the same as I do. We all do. We’re all carryin’ it. And if I wasn’t here, they’d just keep on carryin’ it.”

“Yes. They would.”

“And they’d get the job done. Even with someone other than me holding the shield.”

“Even…?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not ready to put the shield down just yet. I’m just saying that I’m only one part of a very powerful team. It’s not all on me.”

Her smile was radiant, even if her eyes were a little moist. “I’m very glad to hear you say that.”

“Me, too.”

“I’m also very glad to hear that you’re not going to put down your shield just yet.”

“Why?”

Sharon winked. “Because I’m kind of in the mood to make love to Captain America.”

Steve took his napkin from his lap and tossed it onto his plate. As they both stood, Steve said, “I am _one hundred per cent_ on board with that plan.”

He drew Sharon to him. He kissed her for a while, then pulled back so he could look at her. “There’s one more thing I realized today.”

“What’s that?”

“I realized that… I love you.”

Sharon’s smile was so wide it actually made her cheeks hurt. She didn’t even try to keep her eyes from filling with tears. “Steve...” 

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you cry, I just-“

“No, it’s… I’m fine, I’m just so happy! I love you, too, Steve. I love you so much…”

She probably smeared makeup on the shoulder of his shirt, but neither noticed, nor would they have given a shit if they did.


	19. Go Ripple Somewhere Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce is doomed. Bucky and Joss have a talk and clean guns. Sam and Anita rest during halftime and they're not watching a game.

After the team meeting the day before, Director Coulson had returned to D.C. to begin preparations for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s part of the coming offensive against Jarman Arias and his group. The rest of the team needed some activity. None of them was particularly good at sitting still, so after a nearly day-long meeting, they were all ready for a hard workout. The team split between those who went to the gym and those who went to swim laps in the pool.

The group who went to the gym/training floor included Bruce and Catherine. From most of the machines Bruce was using, he could see Catherine where she ran on one of the treadmills. He was about halfway through his workout before he realized he had been watching her almost continuously. He put a little more effort into the next few triceps pulls, grunting as he channeled his frustration at himself into exercise.

His alarm this morning had awakened him from a dream about nothing; just a dream about hanging cabinets in a kitchen and not being able to make them fit right. It wasn’t the content of the dream that was the problem. It was the background. Although the dream took place in a room he’d never seen before, in the way of dreams, Bruce knew that it was _his_ kitchen, of _his_ house. And that Catherine was in the dream helping him with the cupboards because it was _her_ kitchen, and _her_ house, too.

He’d been upset when he awoke. He’d disentangled himself from her and gotten up with a distracted “good morning,” not even kissing her. Every other morning they’d woken up together since she’d been staying with him, he’d been happy to snuggle into her warmth and the cozy, sleepy smell of her, which had always led to one of them pulling the other on top of them and lazy morning sex.

Not today. He continued to grunt through his reps as his mind went back over the morning.

 _Bruce walked briskly to the bathroom to start the shower. It was one thing to dream of Catherine. After all, she was lying with her legs tangled up with his, her head on his shoulder and his nose in her hair. That was just… proximity. But he did not want to be dreaming of a home with her. He didn’t want the memory of how warm and happy he’d felt in the dream, and he sure as hell didn’t want the ragged longing he could feel deep in his chest now.  
  
She’d been right. They never should have started this again. His solitary life was going to feel unbearably cold and empty when this was over and she was gone. How was he supposed to sleep in his bed alone, with the memory of how complete and right it had felt to have her there? When he’d learned she taken the position at Columbia and moved to New York, he’d been able to fight the temptation of having her in the same city by convincing himself she wouldn’t see him even if he tried to go to her. How was he even supposed to begin to fight it now that he knew she still loved him, too?  
  
But he had to. That was the unshakable fact. He absolutely would not put her in the kind of danger she’d be in with him. Maybe he was going to have to be the one to leave New York.  
  
He didn’t want that. This - his work with the Avengers and his life in the Tower - was home like nothing had been home since the accident that first created the Hulk. These people could defend themselves, and whoever else needed defending, from whatever he might do. But Bruce didn’t have it in him to live in the same city with Catherine and not be together. Not now. Not anymore.  
  
As he stood with his face up to the steaming water, he heard her open the door to the glass block shower enclosure. He sighed, knowing she couldn’t see or hear it through the spray. He didn’t want her to join him in the shower. It also happened to be the thing he wanted most in the world. He turned around and pulled her to him, holding her too tight but unable to relax his arms. He needed to feel her as close to him as possible.  
  
“I love you, Cath,” he managed to choke out through the constriction in his throat.  
  
“I love you, too.”  
  
After a while, he was able to relax his hold on her. She seemed to know that something was wrong, because she waited for him to kiss her, and didn’t move her arms from around his back until he slid his down to cup her buttocks and pull hips to his. From there, she followed his lead, moving with him as he rubbed his hardening cock against her, leaning back to give him access when he caressed his way from the curve of her ass around her flank to her breast.  
  
He needed to be inside her. He couldn’t get close enough. He lifted up one leg, wrapping it around himself so that he could maneuver his cock to her entrance. She helped, tilting her hips to guide him in. Once he was buried in her, he again pulled her as close as he could, which didn’t leave much room to thrust, but he didn’t care. She was here, and she was his, and she was welcoming him and squirming against him because she loved and wanted him as much as he loved and wanted her.  
  
Bruce splayed his hand on the side of her face, using his thumb under her chin to pull her mouth to his so that he could have his tongue inside her, too. This close, this entwined, he felt a little calmer, but he was still breathlessly, desperately needy. Her heat and clinging wetness felt so fucking perfect, he could already feel the drawing, circling waves of pleasure beginning to roll outward from somewhere deep in his pelvis. More conflicting desires battled within him as his body’s desire for climax fought with his heart’s need to keep Catherine right where she was. He felt his orgasm approaching, inevitable and necessary, yet sure to bring them closer to separating.  
  
“Cathy, you are so… I don’t know how to make you… make this… Aw, Cath, I need you so much-“  
As hard as he was trying to hold off, the decision was taken out of his hands when she began to make sounds he recognized all too well.  
  
“Please, Bruce, touch me, I’m so close!”  
  
Almost the moment his fingers reached her, she was crying out as she came. After that, he was helplessly inundated with his own intense orgasm. They moved together, kissing deeply and messily the whole time, groaning inarticulate words, gasping for breath and murmuring fragments of sentences on the exhales.  
  
They remained standing together under the hot water long after they’d worked through the last aftershocks. Again, Catherine followed Bruce, holding him as hard as he was holding her, staying with him and continuing to return his now-languid kisses. He realized at some point that some of the drops of water on his face were tears. He let them fall, not worried that she’d be able to distinguish them from the water sluicing over them from the oversized shower head.  
  
Still, something must have shown in his face, because when he let Catherine far enough away to be able to look into his eyes, she stroked a hand over his hair and murmured, “We’ll figure it out.”  
He bent his forehead to hers. Taking a deep breath that betrayed the depth of his emotion with the shudder he couldn’t hide, he shook his head slightly.  
  
She didn’t argue. She simply reached behind him for a bottle of body wash and smiled as she poured out a handful and began to rub it across his chest._  
  
Now, in the late afternoon, watching her smooth stride as she ran and appreciating the sheen of sweat on her chest and the glow of exertion in her face, he swore under his breath. Which you shouldn’t do if you’re working out next to a supersoldier and don’t want him to hear you.

“Something on your mind?” Bucky asked.

“This resistance is getting hard to pull against, is all.”

Bucky snorted. “I get that you’re a genius and all, but you might just be the worst liar I’ve ever seen. The green guy lie any better than that?”

“Well, he hardly speaks, so…”

Bruce tried not to notice that Bucky was doing overhead lat pulldowns using approximately three times the weight Bruce could ever hope to lift. Somehow, it didn’t really help to remind himself that Bucky had a body full of super serum and a mechanical arm. Especially not because he’d done so many reps Bruce had lost count, and he was barely sweating. And with all the blood coursing through them, Bucky’s back and arm muscles were bunching and glistening in the tank top he was wearing. It did nothing to improve Bruce’s mood.

“Do you think you could go ripple somewhere else?” He snarled.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“What is it? You concerned about the plan? Did we miss something?”

“Just…” Bruce gave up. He picked up his towel and wiped his face, then drank a hefty glug of his water as he stumped dejectedly to the leg press machine, where he wouldn’t be able to see either Catherine or Bucky. Of course, because this was Bruce’s life, using that machine meant he would have had to look at Steve working out with free weights. Fuck that.

He walked to the recumbent bike and pulled Tony’s airpods out of his ears. “You wanna box?”

When Tony got over his irritated surprise at having the deafening music stop suddenly, he shrugged and agreed. Bruce actually grinned. Punching Tony always made him feel better.

****

*****

****

**Bucky:**  
I was thinking of ordering pizza. Gonna clean guns and sharpen knives. You can use my stuff if you want to do yours.  
  
Having sent the text to Joss, he spent the next few minutes feeling like a complete boob while he waited for her to reply. Or not. He kept remembering that she’d said she wanted to tell him something. Yeah, he was dying to know what it could be, but that wasn’t the reason for the invitation. It was for her, not himself. He was just trying to give her the opportunity to talk to him if she needed to. You know, just being kind because they hadn’t had a chance earlier. Besides which, inviting her over in the evening wasn’t a date if they were going to maintain weapons, right? That was work. And he knew she didn’t have any cleaning or sharpening supplies with her, so it was just politeness. Not that pretty much _anyone_ else on the team wouldn’t let her use theirs, so maybe she’d turn him down, in which case, even though it was totally _not_ a date, and it meant absolutely nothing either way, he’d still feel like an ass…

 _Jeez_. He _did_ use to be smooth, right? 

Bucky was just about to curse Hydra for brainwashing all the cool out of him when his phone startled him by pinging in his hand. 

**Joss:**  
My kind of evening. Half an hour?  
**Bucky:**  
See you then. What kind of pizza?  
**Joss:**  
Nothing weird.  
**Bucky:**  
Alarmingly nonspecific…  
**Joss:**  
Pepperoni, cheese, mushrooms. I’m a pizza traditionalist.  
**Bucky:**  
Done.

Bucky could breathe again, for the seven seconds between being glad she was coming and starting to be nervous about it. The next half hour was a nightmare of what-ifs and second-guessing that Bucky was immensely glad Steve wasn’t there to witness and give him shit about.

When Joss knocked on his door, Bucky was as relieved as he was glad to see her. He was relieved because he could quit worrying about the many ways he could make a fool of himself. He was glad to see her because, although they’d spent the entire day together at the team meeting, they had been working, and in a room full of people. This was different. 

She was wearing jeans and a black sweater with long sleeves. The sweater was cropped short so that, as she moved, Bucky got frequent glimpses of skin between its hem and the waistband of her jeans. She wore her hair down, so that the dark, shiny, soft curls flowed over her shoulders, making him want to run his fingers through it. As she kicked off her ankle-length boots just inside the door, he saw her take in his worn jeans, and immediately wished he’d worn something else. He pulled at the collar of the T-shirt he wore under a button-down denim shirt. _Was it hot in here?_

“So… pizza should be here any minute. You want to put those down on the coffee table?” He gestured toward the tote bag over her shoulder, correctly assuming that it held her weapons.

“Yeah, thanks,” she said, moving to set it down.

“Want a beer?”

“Sure.”

He opened two beers, then looked toward where she was settling on the floor in front of his couch. “Want a glass?” 

“Oh, is this a formal occasion?”

Bucky chuckled and brought the beers around to the living room, taking a seat on the floor near Joss, but not touching her. They clinked bottles and took a drink.

He couldn’t wait any longer. Anyway, he needed an ice breaker, so he asked, “So, um, you said you had something you wanted to tell me?” 

Joss took another drink before answering, and he noticed she didn’t look at him at first. “Bucky, I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

He could see the effort it took to make herself look at him. “When I told you that I didn’t want to – well, it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s… Anyway, when I said we shouldn’t, you know, date, I really, um… said it wrong.”

“Got the message across,” he said quietly, trying to be kind. But he knew instantly that she’d misread that. She startled.

“No. It really didn’t. Because I made it sound like I just assumed you would be some kind of jerk because of your… position. And stuff.” She dropped her face into her hands. “Aaaugh, I’m terrible at this.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations. If you don’t want to see me, you don’t want to. It’s fine. We can still clean guns together,” he grinned, trying to make a joke to cover his deep discomfort and renewed disappointment.

She sat up straighter and bent her legs to turn so she was facing him fully. “Please let me say this. It’s important to me.”

He turned more toward her, too. He felt a tug of something in his gut seeing the seriousness in her large, deep-brown eyes. “Sorry. I’m listening.”

“Bucky, I like you. A lot. Partly because I really like the way you’ve treated me since we met. I know that’s who you are. I know you’d treat me – treat any woman you dated – really well. But that’s not what I said. I basically said that you wouldn’t, because you don’t have to. That is absolutely not what I meant. It’s not what I think. It’s not even actually what I’m afraid of.”

He frowned. “Then what is?”

“You are,” she exhaled softly. “Bucky, you scare the living shit out of me, and not because you’re the Winter Soldier. Because you’re _you_. Because I could really…” 

He watched her steel herself, just as she’d done before telling Steve about her abilities. As he had then, he admired her courage. “I could really fall for you,” she almost whispered. “And if I did, if I let myself, then when it didn’t work, I’d be destroyed. And there’s just too much against us.”

As hard as it was not to say anything, he forced himself to remain quiet. 

“So that’s it. That’s the problem. Basic cowardice.” 

She took a moment, looking into his face to see his reaction. He tried hard to simply look like he was listening. Whatever that looked like. Apparently, he got it right, because after taking another sip of beer, she went on.

“I’m sorry for what I said to you before. I basically accused you of being some kind of lothario. I didn’t mean to say it that way. I know that isn’t true. I’m sorry.”

She stopped talking then, and he waited several beats to make sure she’d said everything she wanted to say. The fact that she’d taken a large gulp of her beer and her gaze was now fixed resolutely somewhere around the fourth or fifth button of his shirt suggested that she was done.

When he was sure, Bucky tilted his head. “Joss?” He said, to get her to look at him. His grin would have been mocking except for the pleased warmth in his eyes as he looked into hers. “Did you just give me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech?”

“Um… Yes?”

“And did you really couple it with the ‘I don’t want to date you because you’re too good for me’ speech?”

She groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“Thought so.” 

Friday interrupted them. “Sergeant, Agent, I do apologize for the interruption. Your pizza is here and will be arriving on the elevator in approximately two minutes.”

“Thanks, Friday,” Bucky called in the general direction of thin air, and then turned back to Joss. “Hold that thought.”

He strode down the hall and reached the elevator just as the doors opened, releasing the mouthwatering aroma of pizza from the box sitting on a cart in the middle of the car. He walked a little more slowly on the way back to his rooms, thinking about what Joss had said, and how he wanted to respond. 

He grabbed some paper towels from the kitchen on his way back to the living room, where he pushed Joss’s tote bag to one side and set the pizza box in the middle of the coffee table. When he sat back down on the floor, he noticed that Joss didn’t move to reach for the pizza. Instead, she was watching him expectantly. He took a minute to breathe deeply before he spoke.

“What I’m about to say is gonna make me sound like I’m a hundred years old.”

Joss smiled and actually laughed a little at that. _So far, so good._

“Things used to be different. Back when I was… well, back before I went into the Army.”

Seeing that he had her attention, he continued. “I mean, guys have always been expected run after girls, but back then, girls were supposed to make ‘em, you know? They were supposed to pretend they didn’t want the same things guys do. Girls who admitted they liked to have a good time, well, that often got used against them. I know how sexist and wrong that must sound to you, but…”

She was still listening, nodding a little. “When a guy really liked a girl, he’d still try to get her to do stuff, because he’s a guy. But everybody knew the rules: the girl was supposed to say no, even if she really wanted to say yes. So how it worked was, the more he liked her, the slower he’d be willing to go.”

Now she was definitely nodding, a serious look on her face as he went on. “The way it works now is a lot more honest in some ways. I mean, I’m not naïve. I spent a lot of time chasin’ girls back before the war. Catchin’ some of ‘em, too,” he winked. “I know we all pretty much want the same thing. It’s good that we’re not playin’ that stupid ‘good girls don’t’ game anymore.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Joss agreed.

“But here’s the thing: that’s what I know. That slow, gradual pace. One of the hardest things for me waking up in the future is that everything now is so much faster, including dating,” Bucky continued. “And I’ll be honest, I talk big, but it’s really too fast for me. Never has been comfortable. That’s partly why I may flirt a lot, but I don’t really date. Lotta other reasons, too, but… You with me?”

“Yeah,” Joss said quietly, that same serious, intense look on her face. But there was a dawning understanding there, as well.

“So you’re right. I’m not a lothario. Used to like to think I was, but like I said, that was a different time. And a lot’s happened since then. I’m not too bothered by the fact that I’m old-fashioned by today’s standards.” He huffed a rueful little laugh. “A lot of adjustments have been tougher than that one.”

“I can understand that.”

He cocked his head a bit as he looked at her. “Does it change your perspective any?”

“Yes,” she said, a new light in her eyes. “You’re right, I’m looking at you from the perspective of the wrong time. Which means I owe you an even bigger apology.”

“Yeah,” he scoffed, “Because you shoulda learned that in all your experience with hundred-year-old guys.”

“Still.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Joss, I’m just trying to tell you who I am. Because I’m kinda hoping it’ll change your mind about me. About giving you and me a try. If you need to go slow, that’s perfect, because so do I. And Joss…” He waited until she looked into his eyes before going on softly, “I haven’t felt like this in a long, long time. If you feel the same way, then maybe we can figure something out. What do you think?”

“I’m still going to be scared.” 

“Me, too. So let’s make a pact. We’re both honest about what we want, and how we feel. We only take risks we’re ready for. And we don’t break one another’s trust.”

Joss still looked thoughtful, but her eyes sparkled and the smile that had been trying to form on her lips now broke through. “I think… I think I could do that.”

She was smiling fully as she put a hand on his where it rested on the carpet between them. “Thank you.”

He smiled back, leaning in to give her a short, chaste kiss. 

Things fell rapidly into place after that. Within an hour, they’d eaten and were sitting on the floor on opposite sides of Bucky’s coffee table, weapons and maintenance equipment strewn in a wide circle around them. The table was covered with thick cloths and all sorts of paraphernalia including bottles of cleaning solvent and gun oil, brushes and cleaning rods, and cleaning cloths. They each had a disassembled weapon in front of them and were working on them as they talked and laughed.

It felt to Bucky like when they’d first met, before he’d kissed Joss: easy and fun. All the awkward tension was gone, replaced by a sort of hopeful curiosity. He could see in the set of her shoulders and her quick laughter and smiles that Joss felt more comfortable than she had in days. Hours passed as they showed each other their weapons – Joss had insisted on seeing every one Bucky had in his apartment and he’d only barely talked her out of taking her to the armory to see the rest – discussing and arguing about their uses and merits. It didn’t occur to either of them that this wasn’t what people usually did on a date.

Long before they were done with their weapons, Bucky had started to think about whether he should try to kiss Joss good night. He was a bit nervous about it, given their discussion, but he was more excited by the idea. He was elated that Joss was willing to give things between them a chance. Because she wasn’t the only one who was in danger of losing their heart. 

When it came time for her to go and he walked her to the door, somehow it was just natural for her to turn to him and drop her tote from her shoulder while they reached for each other. First, they shared a warm hug, which he didn’t even realize he smiled through. He was too busy paying attention to her body pressed full-length against his, and the way she was holding him as tightly as he was holding her, her face pressed against his shoulder. It felt friendly and promising at the same time, welcoming and accepting and affectionate. Everything about the way Joss held him told Bucky that the things he was feeling were mutual.

Which made it easy to reposition himself just enough to kiss her. In fact, it wasn’t entirely clear to Bucky who kissed who, which gave him a pleasant, tingly warmth. A few moments into kissing Joss, and being readily kissed back, that warmth had moved decidedly down the spectrum toward heat. He kept his kisses soft and slow, though. Only when he felt Joss tentatively lick at his top lip did he use his own tongue, and even then, he was cautious and sweet. 

That didn’t stop his body from responding to her. By the time they separated, they’d been standing just inside his door, lips and tongues together, for at least ten minutes, and he hadn’t kissed anyone like that in a very, very long time. One look at her flushed face and heavy-lidded, dilated eyes, and he knew she was as worked up as he was. She was breathing heavily when she whispered a soft “Good Night” and, smiling a little dazedly at him, slipped out the door he held open and went into her own rooms.

Yeah, taking things slow was a little frustrating. But then, it always had been. And that had always been part of the fun, too.

****

*****

****

Sam lay back in the deep, soft recliner with Anita on his lap, her head on his shoulder. He was wearing only sweatpants; she was wearing a white, terry-cloth robe that he could only guess came with the room, because he couldn’t remember ever buying one. The lights were on their softest, most romantic setting, which went perfectly with the mood of tender, satisfied closeness between them. 

He was happy. Anita was a woman he’d already realized he could love, and she seemed to be on the same page. Not that they’d spoken of love yet; it was early and there was no reason to rush. But Sam had been in love before, and he knew this was more than a crush. He’d also been burned before, so he was careful to watch her for signs that told him how she felt. He was very interested in never again being the only one in love. 

Right now, she was sighing deeply and contentedly as she handed him the bottle of water they were sharing. It was almost empty. 

“You drink the rest,” she murmured into his chest. 

He kissed the top of her head, which was the part of her he could reach, and finished the bottle. Shaking it, he asked, “You still thirsty?”

“Not right now,” she answered. He could hear the smile in her voice. “But since it’s only halftime, maybe we should bring a bottle back to bed with us.”

He chuckled as he shifted, raising the back of the recliner and lowering the footrest. He stood with her in his arms and carried her to the kitchen, where he opened the door of the refrigerator. She plucked a bottle from the door and swung it closed as he turned and headed for the bedroom.

They didn’t say much of anything as he laid her back down on the bed and slowly removed her robe. Sam was pretty preoccupied. He couldn’t have put percentages on it with any degree of accuracy, but the part of his brain that wasn’t entirely focused on Anita was… OK, was focused on Anita, too, but in a different way. He was starting to think about what might happen after this mission. 

He lived here. She lived in D.C. If it was too early to talk about love, it was way too early to talk about anyone moving. He wondered how long they’d have to do the long-distance thing before that became an issue. As he began to kiss his way down her body, he realized that he wasn’t thinking about “if.” He was thinking about “when.” That thought made him pay extra attention to making sure she was enjoying what he was doing.


	20. Cranky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody's cranky while they're getting ready for the operation. Sam is a big, sappy dork. There's another destructive event. Clint watches Natasha pack her hardware, and that's not a euphemism. Bucky and Joss get in one last training session, with a special guest star. Anita has dinner with Arias, and Sam is not one bit happy about it. Steve and Tony talk. And yell.

It took most of the next day to load the plane. There were a million decisions to be made about equipment, surprise repairs to be made, details ironed out. Then everything had to be trucked out to the airfield and loaded onto one of the larger cargo planes owned by Stark Industries.

Tony was cranky because Pepper wouldn’t be coming. Bruce was cranky because he was being pulled in several painful directions at once, trying to prepare monitoring equipment for the mission and plan for his role, trying to balance the work only he could do with the work he and Tony needed to collaborate on, and overlaid on all, trying to figure out how he was ever going to find the strength to let Catherine go again. 

Steve was cranky because there were a million and one things that needed his attention, and he was feeling the pressure of pulling the operation together. Bucky was cranky because Steve was cranky. 

Sam was cranky because he did not like the role Anita was going to have to play, that meant she’d be leaving for Washington D.C. this afternoon. He was having trouble concealing his concern for her safety, which he knew wasn’t helpful and suspected she’d find a little patronizing.

Clint was cranky because Natasha was still having her own problems with pre-mission concerns for Clint’s safety, which meant that she was cranky. 

The only three Avengers who weren’t cranky were Scott, Wanda and Vision, and the only reason Vision wasn’t cranky was that his programming didn’t allow for it. He was deeply troubled by the use of a human being as a “resource” to be consumed in the use of the machines to create destructive phenomena, and even more troubled by his discovery of the method by which this was accomplished. He hadn’t yet shared it with the rest of the team. He would have to, he knew, but he’d shared it with Tony and Tony’s reaction had been bad enough.

Steve had just finished a phone call with the President, who wanted to know everything the team knew and had an opinion on everything. Nothing Steve could do would convince the President to talk to Sharon about all of that, even though he was well aware that was her job, and would have freed Steve to do other things. As he always did, Steve stood almost at attention as he spoke to the President. Bucky, watching that, found it amusing, given the President couldn’t see him. Only once he finally got off the phone did Steve slump against a counter in the armory. 

“I wish he’d just talk to Sharon,” Steve whined. “That’s half an hour of prep time I’m not getting back.”

“That’s why I keep telling you to let me handle more of this stuff. I coulda been pinch hittin’ for you the whole time you were on the phone.”

“Give me a break, will ya’, Buck? I didn’t know he was gonna call.”

“Bullshit. We both knew he’d call today. He’s always gotta have his hand in, and this time it kinda makes sense for him to be in the loop. There are at least two of those machines in the U.S., and probably a lot more.”

Steve sighed and pulled a hand through his hair. “Yeah,” he finally admitted reluctantly. “You’re right. Tell ya’ what. You take charge of the explosives. See where Tony’s at with that and you make the calls about what we need and how it gets transported.”

“Got it. I’ll also work with S.H.I.E.L.D. on ground transport in D.C. I know what we need.”

“Do it.”

“You go eat lunch.”

“I’ll grab something. I gotta-“

“You gotta keep your head on straight, which you won’t if you’re on empty. I ain’t askin’. Eat some fucking lunch.”

Steve grinned fondly and put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “You’ve been tellin’ me to eat since I was twelve.”

“And you’ve been fightin’ me on it that long, too. You’d think as many times as we been through this, you’d learn.”

“Yeah, OK. You got time to come with?”

“I already ate. At lunchtime, like a normal fuckin’ person. Me, I don’t need to be told how to maintain basic human functions.”

“Asshole,” Steve smiled.

“Go,” Bucky grinned back.

Steve was still smiling as he jogged up the stairs. He was still getting used to having Bucky back at his side, the feeling of completeness still new enough that he noticed it. Bucky had been taking care of Steve since the day they met, and it hadn’t changed appreciably when he’d been Steve’s Sergeant in the Army. Steve remembered the looks between the men in the beginning, when their Sergeant would tell their Captain what to do and then get gruff when he balked. They got used to it, especially because they learned Cap kind of did need taking care of, and because when he gave an order, Bucky was always the first one to move to follow it. Steve knew that scolding him into taking care of himself was Bucky’s way of loving him. Always had been.

Steve thanked God for about the ten millionth time that Bucky was here with him, against all possible odds. Shuri and T’Challa had had to practically beg him to stop thanking them for cleaning all the Hydra poison from Bucky’s mind. Because of all they’d been through, and all the years Steve had spent missing Bucky, he doubted he’d ever forget to be grateful. The two most frequent images in Steve’s still-too-common nightmares were the moment Bucky fell from the train, and the completely blank look in his eyes when Steve had seen him again on the bridge. 

Steve was just in the middle of taking a long drink of milk straight from the container when Friday’s voice interrupted him. “Captain, you’re needed in the Boss’s lab. There’s been another incident.”

“Thanks, Friday. On my way.” He started to run for the stairs before remembering that, if he was being called to the lab, so was Bucky. Who would undoubtedly ask him about his damn lunch, and gripe at him if he hadn’t eaten. Steve turned around and reached into the double refrigerator to pull out some premade sandwiches, orange juice, and assorted other things. Arms full of food, he decided to take the elevator and start eating on the way.

*********

It had taken Sam and Anita quite a while to say goodbye. Sam had felt like a teenager as he held her hand until the elevator doors nearly closed on his wrist, telling her over and over to be careful and to call him. They he’d watched from his floor as Anita, tiny but recognizable on the street below the Tower, was escorted to the limo and driven away toward the airport.

Sam Wilson knew he was a big, sappy dork, and he couldn’t have cared less. For one thing, Sam was an unrepentant big, sappy dork; he couldn’t help it and enjoyed every gooey minute of it, even though he tried his best to hide that side of him from the world. For another, Anita seemed to like it. She was much cooler than he was – OK, it would’ve been hard not to be – but she smiled and leaned in to all his sentimental nonsense.

He was still gazing out the window when Friday interrupted him to let him know he was needed in the Boss’s lab.

*********

To everyone’s surprise, the latest event had taken place in Washington, D.C. It was the first time more than one event had occurred in the same place, and they all wondered what it meant. The only good thing about the earthquake was that it filled in the last blank in the plan, which was where to begin.

The quake had been moderate and, like the quake in Zambia, made absolutely no sense geologically. Still, an earthquake is an earthquake, and there was damage. No one had died, but there were injuries. Once Director Coulson had finished briefing them and they’d seen all the pictures and video that had come in so far, all eyes turned to Steve.

“We’ll leave for D.C. first thing in the morning,” he said, after swallowing the massive bite of sandwich in his mouth. “I’d like another day, but…”

“Agent Herrera has just boarded her plane,” Coulson added through the comms. “She couldn’t get through to Arias when she tried earlier; now we know why.”

“Not loving that part of the plan,” Sam noted. The others in the room gave him understanding looks, but no one suggested a change in Anita’s role.

Steve looked to Bruce. “Your equipment ready?”

“For the most part. There’s a sizeable portion ready to transport to the plane. Catherine and I still have some programming to do before the last pieces are ready.”

“Do it,” Steve said, then turned expectant eyes to Tony. 

“All the monitoring and the machine stuff is Bruce,” he said, sounding defensive. “I got enough to work on with the mods to my suit.”

“We’re wheels up at oh-six-hundred. You gonna be ready?”

Tony scowled at Steve. “I’ll be ready. _Cap_.”

The sarcastic tone of the last word wasn’t lost on anyone. Steve didn’t acknowledge it, but rather turned back to Sam. “Take however many people you need, and get Bruce’s equipment on the plane.”

“Done,” Sam acknowledged.

“I’m gonna go meet with Clint and Natasha right now,” Steve said, “If you need me, have Friday find me.”

*********

Natasha was sitting in the middle of her living room floor, surrounded by a massive array of weapons and tools. Clint was always amazed at the amount of gear she carried in a skin-tight catsuit. He often thought of Mary Poppins pulling things from her satchel that were much larger than the satchel itself.

Clint himself was ready to go. He traveled light and kept his arrows in travel-ready holders anyway. So it was familiar, watching Natasha select what she’d need for a mission. It was also a fascinating glimpse into the way her mind worked. He sometimes asked her how she determined how many Widows’ Bites she’d need, or which pistols. Not that it usually mattered much; as long as Natasha had control of her body, she was never unarmed.

They both recognized Steve’s knock at her door. Neither bothered to get up; Natasha simply called for him to come in. When he appeared, Steve smiled, taking in Clint perched in a crouch on an arm of Nat’s sofa and her in the middle of a sea of firepower.

“There’s been another incident,” Steve began.

“We know,” Nat replied, rejecting a sidearm by pushing it out of the circle. “Friday briefed us.”

“We leave for D.C. in the morning.”

Clint and Natasha simply nodded.

“Coulson’s got quarters for us in the new S.H.I.E.L.D. complex.”

Clint frowned. “Is it finished? Last time I smelled paint for a month and I am not sharing with Banner again. He mutters math equations in his sleep. That shit’s unnerving, man.”

“He says there are enough rooms for all of us now,” Steve replied with a laugh.

“We don’t want separate rooms,” Natasha said, indicating Clint.

Steve didn’t play poker for a reason. His surprise was entirely evident on his face, despite his effort to be nonchalant. “Oh. OK.”

Natasha smirked and went back to her weapons. Clint wondered two things. First, how had Steve missed the change in their relationship? And second, how had Natasha known that?

“Close your mouth, Cap. Flies are getting in,” Clint chuckled.

“Was I…? Sorry. I’m happy for you guys.”

“So are we.”

As they discussed details of the operation to come, Clint realized that he, himself had been pretty blind. When he thought about it even a little, he saw that things had taken a definite serious turn between Cap and Agent Carter. He really should have known that’s what was behind the subtle change he’d noticed in Cap lately, Clint thought. So he could be forgiven for not noticing anyone else’s love life. Clint’s pleased smile seemed a little out of place in a conversation about how many rounds of ammunition, and what kinds, were being loaded onto the plane.

Natasha finished her selections as they talked, and returned the items she wouldn’t be taking to her walk-in weapons safe. She began to pack the rest into padded cases so that, by the time Steve was satisfied that they were fully briefed, she had finished her task.

Clint was surprised to find Natasha standing in the middle of the room, roughly where she’d been sitting earlier, when he turned from closing the door after Steve. He approached her a little cautiously, unable to decipher he look on her face. When he was within arms’ reach, she suddenly made it entirely clear what the look meant. His shirt was halfway across the room and he was lying flat on his back under her before he had time to register that she’d moved.

“Does this mean I’m not such a reckless dumbass after all?” He asked, watching her pull off her own shirt just slightly less quickly than she’d removed his.

“Of course not,” she answered. She leaned over to kiss him, arching up to give herself room to unbutton his pants.

*********

Bucky had one last training session with Joss before they left for D.C. They’d decided that, in order to make her more effective at disarming an attacker, she needed to learn to do it physically first. He was very pleasantly surprised to see how skilled she was at hand-to-hand combat of all sorts, and they’d had some fun as he was testing her. Even though Joss had focused fairly heavily on krav maga, the martial art practiced by the Israeli Defense Forces, there was no reason for her to have learned the particular technique Bucky was teaching her, because it really wasn’t practical. It was simply too easy to get shot trying to wrench a weapon from someone’s hands.

Not so if you could do it from a hundred yards away without the attacker knowing you were doing it, or even that you were there.

Bucky aimed the rubber training weapon, stalking up on Joss until he was about six feet away. She leapt forward and grabbed the barrel, pushing it away from her at the same time she slapped the other hand to the body of the weapon and, continuing the momentum, twisting it out of Bucky’s hands. What he hadn’t taught her was the blinding speed with which she turned it around on him. 

“Where’d you learn that?” He asked.

“I didn’t. It just seemed like the thing to do. You know, bad guy, gun. Gun should be aimed at the bad guy, right?”

He smiled and Joss was momentarily dumbstruck. “Well, I’d say you’ve got the move down. Now let’s try it without hands.”

Joss handed the rubber weapon back and they moved until they were approximately half the gym away from one another. “Whenever you’re ready,” she called.

She barely let him get the weapon halfway to his shoulder before it was sailing through the air. She caught it one-handed. The next thing he knew, he was dodging a basketball aimed at his midsection.

“Nice! Look out, on your five!” 

Joss turned rapidly, to see Sam standing behind her, grinning. He had a rubber handgun trained on her. 

For all of five seconds. She lifted it straight up from his hand, and he watched it cross the space into hers. 

But he didn’t stop. He ran at her, bending so that he would catch her with his arms around her body and his head to one side. She hadn’t expected the move, so he managed to tackle her to the floor, but she’d had time to pull her arms up so that, when they hit the mat, she could bring the butt of the rubber handgun down on his head. At the same time, she braced one foot on the floor and pushed as hard as she could, rolling him off of her just enough so that she could roll out from under him and spring to her feet, landing in a defensive stance with the handgun trained on him. Before he could reach for the long gun where it lay on the floor almost next to him, it flew out of his reach and to her hand.

“Yes!” Bucky cried. “Nice work. I think we’re as far as we’re gonna get with this for now.”

“Sam, are you OK?” Joss reached a hand down to help him up, and was very glad to see he was smiling.

“I’m good. And impressed. Good thing my ego’s healthy enough to stand gettin’ my ass whupped by women.”

“Speaking of which, I was bummed Anita had to leave today. We were gonna go down to the firing range together so I could see what she can do.”

“She just landed in D.C.” Sam replied. “Made contact with Arias.”

Bucky strode over. “Did it work?”

“Seems to have. She told him about our tragic breakup and they’re havin’ dinner tonight.”

*********

Anita wasn’t surprised that the restaurant at which she was to meet Jarman Arias for dinner was very upscale. She also wasn’t surprised to recognize members of his security team trying hard to be inconspicuous in several places both inside and out. She gave no sign that she noticed them. Nor did she acknowledge any of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sprinkled throughout the area.

As she was escorted to his table, Arias stood with an oily smile to welcome her. After an overly-physical greeting, he helped her with her chair and announced that he’d ordered for them. A glass of what turned out to be excellent red wine was already sitting before her.

“I was so pleased to get your call, mi Anita. Of course, I am sorry to hear about your affair with the Falcon, but… these things happen.”

Anita remembered she was supposed to be from Bogotá and gave her Spanish the appropriate accent. “I am not the first woman to be disappointed in love,” she agreed. “But I’m sure we can find a more pleasant topic of conversation.”

And they did. Arias was actually quite charming when he wanted to be, and he appeared to be putting forth a special effort now. For some reason, he continued to bring the subject back to Sam, however.

“He doesn’t seem to be enjoying his time with the Avengers,” Arias noted.

“No,” Anita agreed. “He doesn’t. He did say he had talked to you about that.”

“Yes. I must admit, it is an interesting thought, having him working for me. I would, of course, need to know that I could trust him.”

“Mmmmm,” she made an affirmative hum as she took a sip of wine. “Well, Sam is… a pragmatist, shall we say? It’s one of the reasons he can’t stand Steve Rogers. Steve is somewhat fixed in his ideas. I suppose that’s why he’s Captain America. For him, there are good guys and bad guys, and everything is either right or wrong. The Falcon has a much more nuanced point of view.”

“ _Mi amor_ , are you saying that _I_ might not live up to Captain America’s high standards?”

“I said nothing of the kind. We’re talking about Sam.”

“And you? What about _your_ high standards?”

“I’m here, am I not?” She smiled as suggestively as she could manage.

Jarman Arias could converse on almost any subject, and although he tended to talk more than he listened, at least he was knowledgeable and interesting. Amusing, even. Since they were in public and sitting on opposite sides of the table, Anita wasn’t being pawed. She was also happy to find that her suspicion that he would try to ply her with alcohol proved wrong. Instead, as the evening went on, she realized that she was truly enjoying herself. Arias was actually a very good date. You know, for a deranged murderer.

Over coffee and dessert, he began to ask more questions about Anita’s work as a network administrator for a well-known business conglomerate. Her cover was meticulously designed and memorized, and she’d had to spend many hours learning about the job she supposedly did. So they were able to have a fairly in-depth discussion about the challenges of big data and constant attacks by hackers. She was truly fascinated by his insights on both topics as the owner of a group of businesses every bit as large as the one she claimed to work for.

Until the conversation took an abrupt turn and she was left blinking at him with her coffee cup halfway to her lips.

“Am I what?”

“I asked whether you are married.” Nothing about his demeanor had changed. He looked pleasantly intrigued, as he had all night.

“No, of course not. I was dating Sam, and now I’m single.”

“Yes, I know about _that_ woman. I’m asking about the real Anita. The one who works for S.H.I.E.L.D.”

She somehow kept her hand from shaking as she took a drink of coffee. She felt the hot pins and needles across her chest that came with the realization that, at a critical point in a mission, the wheels had just come off.

*********

Steve and Tony were sitting on high stools near a counter full of what was, to Steve, an incomprehensible pile of metal and wires. Some glowy things. Couple of hinges.

They were halfway through their first bottle of beer and things already seemed to be sliding sideways. Steve had asked Tony to explain to him why he’d thought that the Sokovia Accords were not only a good thing, but necessary. Why, even now, when they’d had to request the President’s intervention to officially go after someone as obviously dangerous to the world as Arias, he still believed that.

Steve tried to stay impassive and say nothing. He did his best. He could actually taste blood from literally biting his tongue not to challenge some of Tony’s assumptions. But there were two problems. The first was Steve’s entire inability to school his expression. The second was Tony’s need to _respond to_ Steve’s expression. Steve might as well have been shouting his thoughts.

“Don’t give me that ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ look, Rogers; Howard perfected that look over years of practice. I got calluses a mile thick where that look hits. Besides, I’ve been disappointing people for thirty years, you think I give a rat’s ass about that now?”

“I’m sorry, Tony. I’m trying to keep an open mind, I swear.”

“Yeah, well, keep a closed face,” Tony scowled.

Steve sighed. “Go on.”

“What more is there to say? Yeah, it was great to just do whatever we felt like, take on any situation that seemed wrong to us. Hell of a lot easier, I’ll grant you that. Significantly less bullshit. But it _wasn’t sustainable_ , Cap. It was never going to last. And honestly? You and me? We don’t want it to. We both know we’ve fucked up in the past. Hurt innocent people. And I know for a fact we both have the same reaction to the phrase ‘collateral damage.’”

“Yeah. We do. That’s something we agree on.”

“Huh. Imagine that.” Tony drank a quarter of his beer in one gulp.

“The purpose of the Accords was never my problem. I can’t argue with wanting people to be safer. Hell, that’s what we _do_.”

Tony nodded and took another drink.

“It’s this giant government… _apparatus_ you’ve got - I mean, that the Accords have us working under. It doesn’t work. It leaks like an old rowboat, which means we might as well be putting our intel on the radio, and it’s infested with spies. All of which we could’ve predicted at the beginning. We _did_ predict that. _You_ predicted that!” Steve was shouting now.

“So much for an adult discussion,” Tony muttered into his bottle.

Steve deflated instantly, frustrated with himself. His tone was repentant as he said, “You want an adult discussion, we’d need Sam for that. Maybe Bruce, as long as he’s not green.”

At least that got a bit of a quirk of Tony’s lips.

“I apologize. Again.”

Tony nodded slightly and went to the small refrigerator under an adjoining counter. “Can’t we just get Pepper and Sharon to iron it out, let us know when we’re cool again?”

“Right?” Steve agreed. “It’d take five minutes.”

“Three.”

Steve accepted a bottle from Tony and they shared a regretful grin. “For what it’s worth, Tony, I don’t hate you. And I don’t blame you for what happened. Not with the Accords, and not with Bucky.”

“At least that part is put to rest. I know what they put him through, and I know it wasn’t him. That night.” Tony shifted on his stool, visibly trying to shake off the memory. “Not gonna lie, it felt good to blast his arm to Kingdom Come. And hell, he got a cool new arm out of the deal. Way snazzier than the old one. Everybody wins.”

Steve didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept his thoughts to himself.

“Me and Barnes are cool. Hell, I like the guy.”

“Everybody does. It’s fucking annoying.”

“I’ll bet.” There was a long pause where Tony was obviously working through what he needed to say next. When he began, he kept his head down and addressed his comments to something in the area of Steve’s left kneecap. “We were both trying to do the right thing,” he said sadly, exhaustion evident in his voice. “Trying to get to the same place. People disagree. People disagree all the damn time, and they argue and they fight and they say things they shouldn’t, and this was _politics_ , Steve. Everybody fucking fights about politics.”

There was another pause, this one heavier. When Tony spoke again, his voice was unsteady. “That’s fine. We disagreed, we’re never gonna agree on this, it’s fine. Whatever. The thing is, Steve, the thing I can’t get past, is the fact that you made them _pick sides_. I stood there at that fucking airport and I looked at my friends, people I’ve cried with, bled with, people I fucking _love_. And they were there to kill me. Almost did kill Rhodey.” When Tony looked up, Steve was shocked to see a telltale wetness in his eyes. The raw pain on his face stabbed at Steve.

“I don’t know, Steve. I don’t know how to come back from that. Every time I look at any of them, I see them standing there that day. I hear you give the order to fight. And then there’s you. You know what I see when I look at you?”

“Tell me,” Steve whispered, hanging his head.

“I see you in Hydra’s bunker. I see you choosing Barnes. I see you hesitate, just for a second, and then toss the shield to the ground along with me, and Howard, the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D.… everyone and everything that shield represents. And walk away from it all like it was easy. _That’s_ what I see when I look at you. Every time, Steve. _Every. Fucking. Time_.”

Steve started out furious, and only got more pissed off with every second he considered that.

After all that he and Tony had been through together. After the months and years it had taken Nick Fury and the rest of the team to pull Steve out of the mire of black fatalism and find reasons to live, let alone _make a life_. After all the work they’d all done to build a team, to learn to trust one another. After everything they’d accomplished together. Tony wasn’t the only one who had cried and bled with people who had shown up at that airport to kill him. Yet he thought it had been easy to hear him say that Steve wasn’t worthy of the shield that Howard had made? To insinuate that Howard, too, would have despised him for trying to preserve what they’d built and, more incomprehensible still, for trying to save Bucky?

“What the hell else was I supposed to do? You can’t even imagine what it was like for me growing up. You have no idea what it’s like to be poor, for one thing, and I was scrawny and sick all the time, too. I was still a kid when my Ma died, scared outta my mind and wondering what the hell I was gonna do to survive. You mighta worried about having Daddy’s approval, Tony, but I didn’t even have a _dad_. _I_ worried about having food. _I_ worried about having a roof over my head when I was shivering from pneumonia hard enough to crack teeth.”

“Yeah, Oliver Twist, I’m well aware of your triumph over a humble upbringing,” Tony sneered. “Been to that exhibit. Your life sucked so hard.”

“No. It didn’t. For one reason, and one reason only. Bucky. You’ll never understand what he was to me. If you did, you might be able to imagine, just a little, what it was like for me to watch him fall from that train. To not be able to reach him.”

“Aaaw, you’re breakin’ my heart.”

“No, I think what might break your heart is waking up seventy years from now. When everyone you ever knew is dead or dying, and there isn’t one fucking thing that looks right, including the color of the damn sky.”

Tony made a face, but didn’t comment.

“You’d be terrified, just like I was. You’d be so sick with grief you’d wish you’d died, just like I did. And if you found someone, _anyone_ , from your time, I promise you that you’d cling to that person with everything you had.”

Steve took a breath and noticed that Tony didn’t appear to be formulating his next snarky comment, or even an argument. He was listening. “And if that person, by some unbelievable miracle, happened to be the one person you’d relied on your whole life, the person you loved above anyone else? Tony, I swear to you, you’d burn down the world for that person. You wouldn’t hesitate.”

Steve stood and set his half-empty beer bottle on the counter. He stepped closer to Tony, looking down on the top of his head as Tony sat glaring at the floor.

“Don’t you _ever_ imagine it was easy, Tony. Don’t ever. That’s way, way too fucking simple.”

Steve began to stalk toward the elevator. He was startled when the door opened, and Sam practically leapt out. 

“I can’t get a hold of Anita, and neither can S.H.I.E.L.D. She left the table at the restaurant and never came back. Left her purse, her phone, everything, just sitting there. Arias walked out like she’d never been there, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents let him go. They thought she was comin’ back to the table.”

“How long ago did Arias leave?”

“Almost an hour now. S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t find him, either.”


	21. Something Snarky, Which Will Come To Me Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of morning sex, a meeting that gets interrupted, and then a big fight.

Nobody likes to be up at four a.m. No matter which end of the day it is, four a.m. is “way too”. Either you’ve stayed up way too late, or you’ve had to get up way too early. Even Bucky didn’t have much energy to make fun of Joss when he knocked on her door to bring her a cup of coffee and found her wearing her Avengerswear™ nightgown. Her gratitude for the coffee, though genuine, was muted.

“Ugh. Thank you. You didn’t have to do this,” she rasped.

He smirked down at her. “I had to know.”

“Know?” She frowned adorably in confusion.

“Which one you slept in.”

Joss made a face as she held her arms out to display her nightgown.

“OK. Curiosity satisfied. Now hit the shower, Soldier, don’t be late for breakfast.”

“That’s ‘Airman’ and, um… Something snarky which will come to me when I’ve had some of this,” she held up her coffee.

Bucky laughed, giving Joss her first stomach butterflies of the day. Even at four a.m. he was ridiculously beautiful. He was still laughing softly when he leaned in, kissed her on the top of her disheveled hair, and turned for the stairs.  
*****   
Clint was awakened by Natasha reaching over him to turn off an alarm that was just about to go off.

“Did you sleep?”

“Yes, I just woke early,” she answered, settling in when he put his arm around her and pulled her to him. They lay quietly for a few minutes while he lightly stroked her back. She hummed with pleasure and squeezed him with the arm draped over his chest. It wasn’t long before his hand began to caress lower, which naturally led to fondling her ass, and then to flipping them over and pinning her shoulders to the mattress. 

Clint shifted lower in the bed. She kept her eyes closed, letting him worship her with his mouth and spreading her legs to his gentle pressure. Clint was well aware of what Natasha liked, and a slow morning wake-up was at the top of the list. He was actually a little surprised that she was interested, given how hard they’d gone at it from the late afternoon through most of the night. Then again, Natasha was never _not_ interested.

He got another surprise after he’d made her come twice and was again lying next to her. Natasha hated to be late. She was firmly of the “If you’re on time, you’re late” school, and woe betide anyone who caused her to arrive anywhere less than fifteen minutes early. But this morning, when she was again capable of purposeful movement, she rolled on top of him and basically demanded to be fucked, although they were already going to have to hurry to make their flight.  
  
***** Bruce actually held the pillow down over his head, as if he could hide from this vile hour of the morning. It wasn’t working, though, because Catherine was a horrible human being whose methods were as devious as they were stunningly effective. Since he was lying on his stomach, clutching the pillow to his head, she simply tossed the covers off his naked body and started kissing.

For a few moments, he was annoyed. And cold. Heartless and determined, however, she didn’t relent. Instead, she started in with her hands, stroking him wherever she could reach while she placed light, feathery kisses along his neck and down his spine. He knew he was in trouble when she began to slide one hand lightly up the inside of his leg, starting below the knee, and taking her own maddening time. He tried to be stealthy as he spread his legs to give her more access but, singleminded and evil, she simply lifted herself over one leg and used her body to push them apart. Which put her in position to launch the most indefensible phase of her assault.

Bruce groaned loudly as she began to kiss the inside of his thigh, starting about halfway up and in no hurry. He could in no way be held responsible for bending his knees and lifting his hips just enough to rut against the mattress, and he was pretty sure she violated the Geneva Convention when she slipped a hand under him, palm up, and took him in her hand. After that, he was lost. Even before she reached his balls with her treacherous, delicious, filthy mouth.

He might have been able to keep the pillow over his head, even then, if she hadn’t gone nuclear. It was the tiny little laps of her tongue, moving inexorably up from his balls toward his hole that did it. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air under there. He gasped a lungful of sweet, cool air as he flung the pillow across the bed.

“Fuck, Cathy! Holy shit…”

He felt her slide her knee under her enough to shift her weight so that she could use both hands, keeping one underneath him where he was now fucking shamelessly into her fingers, and using the other to spread his cheeks just enough to get to his hole with that unspeakably depraved tongue. The words he howled when he came, harder than he could remember ever coming before, would have shocked any student who had ever learned quantum physics from mild-mannered Professor Banner.

It was weird that, while his pulse was racing and he was still gasping for breath, he was no more awake than he’d been when the alarm went off.  
  
***** Steve was sure that, no matter how long he lived, he would be perfectly happy to stay right in this bed, smoothly sliding deeply into Sharon and then taking his time pulling back out, repeating the process endlessly and listening to her soft, breathy moans. He wanted to slap the clock, with its insistent red numbers that he could see glowing even with his eyes closed, off the bedside table so hard that it shattered on impact. So he did.

Sharon giggled, which felt _fucking amazing_ , and that pushed things just enough that, suddenly, he no was no longer sure he could do this for eternity. At least without losing his damn mind at some point if he couldn’t coax that tiny, electric spark he felt into the fire he needed.

He looked down at Sharon, concentration starting to color the blissed-out slackness on his face. “I love you. You feel like… You’re…”

Right this minute, Steve wasn’t thinking about anything but Sharon, and the way she felt under him, the hot wet pressure of her grasping his dick in the most glorious way. Sharon could see that in his face, and feel it in the way he moved. That was her goal. The next days were going to be tough, and Steve would be under tremendous pressure to make the mission succeed. He hadn’t slept well, so she was doing what she could to help him begin those days at least feeling loved and satisfied.

Steve believed that a gentleman should never be satisfied before his lady was, but Sharon enjoyed breaking that rule of his, mostly for the sheer satisfaction of knowing that she could. She bucked her hips into him, lifting her legs above his back to let him plunge deeper into her.

“Oh, not fair!” He cried, and she giggled into his shoulder.

“Just fuck me, Steve. I need you to come for me. I love you so much…”

When she put it like that, he really had no choice.  
  
***** And then there was Sam. 

Sam woke up swearing. Steve had insisted that they go to bed, since S.H.I.E.L.D. was doing everything possible to find Anita and they would all be flying to D.C. in a few hours, anyway. In any event, it was going to take the loadmasters that long to finish the weight calculations and securing the cargo. Sam figured he’d had about forty-five minutes of sleep total, between cursing Steve for not leaving right away and cursing Tony for backing him. Of course, he’d also been cursing Arias, and for good measure he cursed Phil Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D., so he’d been very busy while he was trying to make the clock move faster and decidedly not sleeping.  
Sam didn’t want to be the one everyone was avoiding on the plane, but he was completely unable to stop pacing. He kept remembering the briefing at the start of the flight, where Vision had explained the way he believed the “resource” was used in creating the destructive phenomena, and imagining Anita being subjected to that. As soon as Sam shook that thought out of his mind, he would begin to imagine her being held captive, and the things Arias might be doing to her, while she tried to understand why no one was coming to help her. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been _right_ there when she was taken! How the _fuck_ had that been allowed to happen?

For the most part, the team let him be. Clint had tried to distract him, but he’d gotten both barrels for his trouble. After that, the rest of the team just tried to avoid eye contact. It was a relief to all of them to land in Washington, D.C. They were all responsible for their own gear, and all had assignments for assisting or supervising the unloading of the rest of the equipment they’d brought from New York.

Once the trucks were loaded, a line of black SUVs with deeply tinted windows arrived to transport them to the new S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, it might have been amusing to watch the team jockeying for places in SUVs other than the one Sam was riding in.

It was Steve and Bucky who ended up with him. The new S.H.I.E.L.D. facility was only half an hour from the former Andrews Air Force Base (now Joint Base Andrews), where they’d landed, but the ride seemed endless to Sam. When he exploded at the sight of a traffic light turning yellow in front of them, Steve turned around to look at him in the rear seat.

“Why the _fuck_ ain’t we in a chopper?” Sam shouted.

“Because it won’t help us to get there ahead of our gear,” Bucky answered reasonably.

Sam responded with a string of expletives that impressed everyone else in the vehicle, even though they were all military veterans.

“Sam…”

“If you try to give me a pep talk, Cap, I swear they will have to scrape you outta this car with a spoon.”

Steve and Bucky both blinked a few times on that one.

“OK, I get that,” Steve said. “You’re worried about Anita and you need to do something. I’m not gonna tell you not to worry, because trust me, I’m worried, too.”

“Trust him on that,” Bucky snarked under his breath.

“We know where she is. We will get her out, and we will take down Arias.”

“Man, you _don’t_ know where she is! She could be anywhere! There’s no guarantee she’s in that fuckin’ bunker. Maybe he’s got something planned in one of the other locations. Maybe he’s got her at his damn villa, maybe-“

“Not helpful,” Bucky broke in. “We got a mission. Even if she’s not there, we’re still gonna be helping her. Focus on the mission, Sam. You just gotta tune out everything else.”

“So fucking easy for you to say that shit.”

“Sam. He’s right, and I know you can filter out the noise. Seen you do it a hundred times. So do it.”

Steve’s tone was a definite command. It helped, for some reason. Maybe because it reminded Sam who was leading the team. Even though they weren’t suited up yet, Steve was every inch Captain America in that moment.

“On it, Cap,” Sam nodded, a little embarrassed.

“Let’s use this time to go over the plan once more.”

None of them needed to go over the plan again, but it would help Sam focus.

*****

One of Director Coulson’s assistants met them at the entrance to the Administration Building. They’d learned from their mistakes at the Triskelion; S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters was no longer housed in one building. Instead, it was a compound made up of various buildings, all of which were connected, but could be disconnected at the touch of a button. Actually, there were a few buttons. If necessary, it was possible to disconnect the underground walkways the hard way: with pre-set charges that just needed a code to reduce them to rubble. The headquarters was also within sight of the derelict hulk of the Triskelion, because Coulson didn’t want anyone, especially himself, to forget the result of anything less than ultimate vigilance.

There were greetings as Coulson’s assistant led the group to their assigned building. It was not specifically reserved to the Avengers, but it had rooms and features that most definitely were. All of them had input into the design of the building and some of its more interesting amenities. Tony and Bruce had a shared lab, and there was an underground armory with features designed specifically for each team member’s weapons.

After stowing their gear as quickly as possible and then supervising the installation of the rest, the team headed into the conference room for a pre-mission briefing with Director Coulson and his staff. Coulson began by telling them the bad news: there had been no sign of Agent Herrera since they’d begun continuous monitoring the entrances to Arias’s underground stronghold in D.C. The facility had been monitored since they’d discovered it, but not in real time, so it had taken some time to pull and review the archived surveillance. There was an inordinate amount of activity around the entrances in the days prior to the earthquake, and it was impossible to determine whether Anita had been in any of the many vehicles that had entered or left the bunker. They knew that she had not entered through the man-sized entrance Natasha and Clint had discovered, but that was the extent of their definitive knowledge.

Sam felt better seeing the anger and concern on the faces of Director Coulson and his staff, as well as all of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents crowded into the conference room who had roles in this mission. Arias had dared to abduct one of their own. They were pissed and determined to get her back safely, and they meant to destroy him and his operation in the process. They all knew Anita; she had trained some of them, and all had experience serving on teams with her. It helped Sam, seeing that her safety was personal to them, too.

When the briefing was nearly complete, Scott Lang fell into the room, landing on his side with a loud, metallic crash, still wearing most of his Ant-Man suit. He ignored the sea of staring, shocked faces, because he was too preoccupied with the bristling arsenal suddenly aimed at him. Most of the people in the conference room were armed, and every single person with a weapon had drawn down on Scott. 

“Yeah, sorry. My bad. Tripped over the threshold.” He laughed nervously, looking up at Director Coulson, one of the few people who did not have a weapon trained on him. As he stood, he muttered, “You might wanna get that fixed. Y’know, lawsuits…”

“Tell me good news, Lang,” Sam barked, holstering both of his Steyr TMPs. Like all the rest of the Avengers team, he had suited up before the meeting so he could be ready to go when it concluded.

Scott stood awkwardly, not moving further into the room. In large part because not everyone had yet taken their aim off of him.

“Stand down, people,” Coulson snapped, irritated.

“I wish I could tell you I saw her, man, but I didn’t,” Scott said sympathetically to Sam. “That place is airtight, at least the entrances. Didn’t have time to go searching for ventilation shafts. Given all the buildings above that place, they could be anywhere. So I had to wait for someone to drive in. I didn’t get everywhere before I had to leave to get back here in time. I didn’t see her, and nobody said anything about her. I don’t know what that means, Sam. Sorry.”

Sam ground his teeth.

“Arias?” Steve asked.

“Arias is down there. That I know for sure.”

Steve nodded as a rustle went through the room at that news. “What’s he saying?”

“I wasn’t with him the whole time, had to look for Agent Herrera. He was speaking Spanish, too, so…”

“All right, Scott, that’s OK. You’re the only one who could get in there undetected and look for Anita. You did what you could.”

“That’s it, then,” Coulson announced, focusing the group’s attention back to the front of the room. “I see no reason to change the plan.” He addressed this to Steve.

“No. Especially now that we know where Arias is. We’re pretty sure he’s been in the area when all of the events have happened, so If he’s here, that should mean nothing’s going to happen anywhere else for a while.”

“Why here, though? Why D.C.?” Natasha asked a question that still remained unanswered, despite both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers devoting a great deal of brainpower to it.

Coulson looked at one of his staffers. “We need to let the President know.”

The staffer pulled a phone out of his pocket and pushed a button as he stood, holding the phone to his ear as he walked out of the room.

“There’s one more thing,” Scott announced from where he still stood near the doors.

Something in his voice had every eye on him instantly.

“I don’t speak Spanish, but I kept hearing people say the same two things: ‘Mañana por la noche’ and ‘el principio.’ Doesn’t ‘mañana’ mean ‘tomorrow’?”

One of several Hispanic S.H.I.E.L.D. agents spoke up. “Those mean ‘tomorrow night’ and ‘the beginning’.”

Most people in the room found someone else to share glances with. Steve and Director Coulson looked at one another. Steve said slowly, “Tomorrow night. The beginning.”

“Tomorrow night is the beginning of whatever this guy’s got planned?” Coulson asked what everyone in the room was wondering.

“We’re not waiting around to find out,” Steve answered.

*****

It started simply.

Vision phased through the walls of the bunker into the control room where the cameras were monitored, creating quite enough of a distraction that nobody was watching the feeds when the teams breached the underground facility. No one saw them take out the building where the vehicle entrance was, or the man-sized entrance with the stairway, except those who were there. There was plenty of shooting in the control room, which did a bit of the work for the Avengers, because apparently Arias didn’t have the strict marksmanship qualifications that S.H.I.E.L.D. did. As Arias’s men accidentally shot up their own equipment, Vision simply ignored the bullets. He was actually in more danger from the arcs of electricity sparking from the damaged consoles. For his purposes, all Vision had to do was avoid that and hover, which wasn’t much of a challenge. He was busier analyzing the room to make sure there were no changes from what had been on the pictures and video from Clint and Natasha’s recon.

Of course, there were guards at the entrances, but according to the recon done by Vision and Ant-Man, Anita was nowhere near there. Steve’s team didn’t even slow down as they breached the drive-in entrance in their impenetrable vehicles; they simply took out everyone they saw. As for Tony’s team, they saw no one from the time Tony blew off the door at the top of the stairs to the time he blew off the door at the bottom.

The teams met in the underground garage, noting that it contained more vehicles than ever. Interestingly, however, none of them were the service vehicles that had been seen on previous visits. Bruce was the first to notice this, and wonder what it meant.

“Get a list of those vehicles from Friday, every one anybody reported seeing down here,” Steve barked. “Then get S.H.I.E.L.D. on every camera in the city and let’s find them. And let the Secret Service know to sweep the area around the White House for ‘em. I don’t like that they’re all gone.”

Phil Coulson’s voice came through the comms. “Neither do I. The list’s coming through now. We’re on it. I’ll let you know when we find them.”

Steve turned to the group and put on his full command voice. “Break into your squads. You all know your objectives. Clint, Natasha, I want to know the second you’ve got Arias.”

“Copy,” Clint nodded.

With a motion from Steve, the squads split up, each to a different door leading from the garage chamber. Each person had a map of the bunker on a small device strapped to their wrist, with a blinking dot showing the locations of all friendlies, the members of each squad in a different color.

Not surprisingly, Sam was leading the squad tasked with finding Anita. The squad included Wanda and three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, including Marcus Turell, Anita’s frequent partner on assignments. They were headed toward the parts of the bunker not searched by Scott, with instructions to simply remove anyone who got in their way. If another squad needed backup, they knew they could be pulled off their mission, but every one of them hoped that wouldn’t happen.

Bucky’s squad, which included Ant-Man, Joss and Sharon, was headed for the control room. There, they and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with them would set up a command post where they could use the cameras to monitor the situation throughout the bunker and relay information.

Steve’s squad included Tony and Bruce, and would take the machine. That was expected to be the most heavily guarded area, and the machine itself would require both Tony and Bruce to take out. They only hoped the situation would allow Bruce to remain Bruce. While handy as hell in a fight, the Hulk wasn’t so good with electronics.

Catherine Mulready was back at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with Director Coulson, monitoring and ready to provide any scientific, technical or other backup necessary. If all went according to plan, her role would also require her to work with the S.H.I.E.L.D. technicians standing by, ready to take over satellites once the team figured out how to give those satellites something to do.

It was a good plan. The problem was, Arias had a plan that was just a little bit better. And he had the machine.

There was a reason the machine looked like the pyramids at Chichen Itza, which was that only the top part of it was needed to amplify energy. The lower, much larger, sections were used for defense of the facility. Like most machines, it was difficult to know, just by looking, what the machine could do. Between them, Tony, Bruce, and Catherine had determined everything that could be known about the machine simply by looking at its visible aspects and observing what it had done thus far. They couldn’t know what else it could do. They didn’t even know it _could_ do something else. But it could, and it did.

Clint and Natasha, consistent with their mission to simply find and capture Arias, had avoided contact with as many of his men as they could. That meant hiding and simply observing them to determine who was where as they made their way around the bunker. As they’d done that, they’d noticed something odd about those they saw, something that hadn’t been present when they’d been in the facility previously.

“Ironman, Hulk, you copy?”

“We got you, Hawkeye. What’s up?” Tony asked.

“You seen any of these assholes yet?”

“A couple so far. Why?”

“Yours got some kind of collar on?”

There was a pause before Bruce’s voice came over the comms. “Yeah. Thick, metal, got some buttons on them?”

“That’s them,” Clint confirmed. “The fuck are those?”

“Stand by, we’ll let you know when we figure it out.”

Clint and Natasha shared a look as they moved from their hiding spot to slink down an adjacent hallway.

As Bucky led his team down the hallway toward the control room, he could hear occasional gunshots as Arias’s men still refused to give up on trying to shoot Vision. There were occasional troubled shouts in Spanish and, twice, small groups came running down the hall, apparently trying to escape the red dude in the weird getup who just hung there in the air and didn’t have the sense to know bullets were supposed to kill you. They were no happier to meet the Winter Soldier or Ant-Man. 

In fact, one of them griped to another as they found themselves helpless on the floor, “I told you we shouldn’t have tried to run. At least that floaty fuck wasn’t hitting anyone.”

Sam held up a hand, fist closed. The squad stopped, flattening themselves against the wall of the corridor in response to the sound of someone yelling in clearly pissed-off Spanish. There were a series of sharp clicks and bangs, which Sam recognized as the sound of weapons being slapped into hands. _Shit_. Sam moved silently back to where Wanda stood pressed against the wall and made a series of hand motions. She nodded and stepped with him back toward the door. 

Sam took two quick breaths and whipped around the doorway, spraying bullets into the room as he grabbed for the edge of the thick, metal door. None of the shocked men inside had time to get off a shot until after he’d already swung it past half-closed, so that the few who did manage to fire only ended up hitting the door. Sam slammed it closed as hard as he could and flipped down the latch while Wanda sent wisps of scarlet energy into the mechanical workings inside it, bending them sufficiently to prevent it being opened using anything other than an acetylene torch and about half an hour. They moved on down the corridor.

  


Steve’s team didn’t have to go far before they met armed resistance. At the junction of two corridors, they surprised a group of Arias’s men who were there to prevent anyone from doing exactly what Steve’s team intended; reach the machine. With the element of surprise, the team had little trouble clearing the corridor, but there was nothing stealthy about it. Gunfire, shouts, and the sounds of fighting echoed in all directions. Further down the corridor, perhaps around a corner, came the sound of a heavy thunk. Steve looked back at Bruce, whose face told him that Bruce wasn’t any happier about that noise than Steve was. 

A dull scrape and a thud caused both of them to look over at Ironman, who had removed one of the thick metal collars from the neck of a man lying unconscious at his feet. He handed the collar to Bruce, who turned it over in his hands to examine it. 

It was Steve who heard it first. Or maybe “felt” would have been a better word, because it didn’t really seem like sound. It seemed like some kind of slow blast wave, that hit him and immediately caused a piercing pain in his ears and a burning all over his skin. For a few seconds, the rest of the team watched in dismay as Steve clutched at his head and grimaced. Then, one by one, they began to feel it, too. As soon as Tony saw Steve and then other team members begin to react, he managed to say the words, “Friday, what’s going on?” before he, too, was hit with the same screaming pain in his head. 

For him, it lasted only a few seconds, before stopping abruptly. “It’s a hypersonic weapon of some kind, Boss. I filtered it out of your headset, and it can’t penetrate the suit. But you need to get everyone else out of here. It’ll be extremely painful and it’ll start to burn them if they stay.” 

Tony saw that Bruce was already transforming, even as he reached for Steve. He shouted at him and the rest of the team to run, to evacuate. Steve seemed to understand and began to run, half-dragging a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who was about to pass out. Those who could followed, stumbling drunkenly as they held their hands over their ears and shrieked in agony. A few were already on the ground. Tony grabbed two of these, one under each arm, and began to run after Steve. He looked back from where the corridor turned a corner, to see the Hulk, looking plenty pissed as he kept hitting his head with one hand while he carried the last S.H.I.E.L.D. agent over his shoulder with the other.

On the way, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent fell from Steve’s grasp onto the floor of the corridor, taking Steve down with him. Tony stopped long enough to help Steve back to his feet, and put the agent into Steve’s arms. They managed to get halfway back to the garage chamber before Steve fell back to the floor, writhing and holding his head. Tony tried to help him up, but he was unconscious.

The Hulk reached them, and continued stumbling by, roaring and hitting his head. Tony had a choice: save the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, or save Steve. He couldn’t do both.

  


Like Steve, Bucky had enhanced hearing and was the first to notice something wrong. He stumbled and cried out, crushing his hands to his head as Joss caught him before he fell to his knees. It took very little time for the pain to hit the rest of the team, too. Ant-Man was the only one with a helmet that protected him somewhat, so he heard Friday’s warning about the hypersonic weapon and orders to get out. He made a few quick adjustments to his suit to filter out most of it, and lifted Sharon from the floor where she’d fallen. Vision appeared at the doorway to the control room, and Scott shouted to him for help. 

Although he was in the most pain due to his supersoldier hearing, Bucky was able to stagger down the corridor. He and Joss leaned against one another and the wall, dragging eachother toward the exit. Two of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were able to do the same thing, while Scott carried another. It was slow going, although they traveled as fast as they could. Vision was able to dispatch the few of Arias’s men they met with energy from the Mind Stone in his forehead, which was convenient, since he had a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent under each arm.

The group made it almost to the door to the conference room Sam and Anita had been taken to on the night of the tornado before Joss lost consciousness. She fell to the floor as Bucky tried to keep her upright. He leaned over, attempting to pick her up, but ended up falling over her prone body himself and seemed unable to rise. When Scott turned around, he saw that the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were about ten feet behind him, unconscious in a heap. 

Vision had his hands full. Scott could probably drag one agent behind him, but that would still leave three of them behind, including either Bucky or Joss.

Sam and his team were the deepest inside the bunker, with the farthest to go to safety, when the sound began. The first indication was when Marcus Turell uttered a high-pitched shriek and fell to his knees. After that, he didn’t notice what else happened, because he was hit by a blinding pain in his head and the skin on his bare arms began to burn. He dropped his weapon as he turned to see Wanda begin to scream.

  


Director Coulson was speaking calmly into his mic, but Catherine wasn’t fooled. She could see the terror on his face and she could hear for herself the screams and desperate shouts of the team. She could also hear a roar she’d only heard once before in her life, but it was a sound she’d know anywhere. Bruce had transformed into the Hulk. And even he sounded like he was in agony.

“Damn it, somebody respond! What is your status?” Coulson was now yelling. 

No one was responding.


	22. Time For Some Of That Avengers Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team has to flee the bunker and nobody's happy about it, especially not Sam or Steve. Tony Stark is a little shit. Bruce feels weird about Hulking out. Bruce and Catherine get their science on, which Tony is not that helpful with. Because he's busy being a little shit. Steve and Sharon have a conference call with the President and Director Coulson. Bucky's reaction to Joss's apartment surprises both of them. The President's staff needs to figure out how to get blood out of a carpet. Anita gets a new roommate.

“S.H.I.E.L.D., we need transport at the garage level, and we need it right-by-God-now,” Tony shouted into his headset. “They’ve activated a hypersonic weapon down here; the drivers will need to be shielded.”

“On the way, Ironman,” Coulson snapped, pointing and giving orders even as he listened. “Who’s down?”

“Wait one, S.H.I.E.L.D., let me get this heavy asshole to safety, then I’ll give you a report,” Tony grunted, half-carrying, half-dragging Steve to the garage level, with a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent under his other arm.

As soon as he was able to drop Steve and the agent near the tunnel entrance, he turned back toward the corridor. The Hulk was nearby, having dropped the agent he’d been carrying and now holding his head with both hands.

“Don’t even think about it, Gumby, we got team members down! Get your leprechaun ass back down that corridor. We don’t leave anyone behind.” He lifted a hand as though he might fire a repulsor at the Hulk, who roared but turned and loped back through the doorway into the corridor. 

As they went, Clint came stumping out of one of the other corridors, holding an unconscious Natasha in his arms. He hurried over to where the others lay, and set her down as gently as he could, given his own pain. He’d been able to avoid some of the effects of the weapon by tearing out his hearing aids, but that only blocked the pain the sound caused the ears of those who could hear. He was still bombarded with it, and felt the burning on his bare arms.

Ant-Man hefted Sharon over his shoulder and leaned down to grab one of the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents collapsed on the floor. Vision passed him as he did so. When they reached the garage cavern, they could see Ironman and the Hulk, each with an agent in his arms, exiting from another corridor. Ant-Man and Vision both dumped their cargoes somewhat unceremoniously near where Steve and the others lay on the floor, nodding to Clint, who was leaning over the other team members, checking pulses. They turned immediately back around to get Bucky, Joss and the last S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

As they did, they saw a scarlet light coming from a doorway, but ran to rescue the rest of their team before Sam and his squad stumbled into the garage area.

Wanda had all of them within a protective shield, which kept them safe but made it difficult for all of them to move very fast, since they had to remain together in a small clump. Still, when they reached the others, they were all relatively unscathed by the hypersonic weapon and were able to help load their teammates into the large armored truck that came screaming down the ramp just then. 

Ironman, Ant-Man, Wanda, and Vision were not particular about how they got the unconscious members of the team into the truck. They were basically tossed in a pile, with the others squatting or sitting around them. The truck took out a few of the vehicles in the garage chamber as it turned around before rocketing back up the tunnel and out of the bunker. 

*********

“Can Captain America use that kind of language?” Tony asked Scott, who grinned and shrugged. 

Most of the team who had been in on the raid was sitting around a large table in the communal kitchen/dining room of their building at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. 

“Is this fucking funny to you, Tony?” Steve snapped, giving him a vicious look.

“Well, the situation isn’t, but your sunburn kind of is,” Tony smirked. 

Everywhere on Steve’s face that his helmet didn’t cover was an angry-looking red. The hypersonic weapon had burned everyone else wherever their skin had been bare, too, but none of their burns were quite like Steve’s. It was healing quickly, but he had white rings around his eyes and white stripes down the sides of his cheeks, leading to a white blob on his chin. Tony, being Tony, had taken more pictures than seemed entirely necessary. 

Steve tossed the cool towel he’d been pressing to his face onto the table and stormed out of the room, followed by Sharon, whose look at Tony spoke volumes.

“I don’t know what he’s bitching about, he’s got that super-healing. He’ll be fine in the morning. Me, on the other hand…” Clint was slumped over the table, face down with both arms in front of him, swathed in cold, wet towels. Natasha, next to him, held one of his hands. With the other, she held a towel to her neck.

“Ain’t enough booze in the world for this shit,” Sam muttered, going to the refrigerator for another beer. He had no burns, since Wanda had very quickly shielded their entire squad, but he was miserable nonetheless. They were now further than ever from rescuing Anita. 

Bucky and Joss shared a look, and Bucky sat up straighter. His face, like hers, was burned, but they’d both been wearing long sleeves and gloves, so they had no other injuries. In fact, her face was already almost back to normal. 

“Listen, since we’re obviously not gonna be able to move on Arias tonight, Joss wants to go check on her apartment. I’m gonna go with her, in case any of Arias’s goons are out lookin’ for us.”

There was a bit of mumbled acknowledgement, but no one seemed very interested. Everyone was too sore and frustrated by their defeat to think much beyond that.

“You comin’ back here?” Sam asked.

“That’s the plan,” Bucky said, standing up from the table. 

“Good. ‘Cause I want everybody ready to regroup and hit it again as soon as S.H.I.E.L.D. gets us that protective gear. Banner and Mulready finished reverse engineering those collars and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s already started on fabricating enough for the teams.”

“I know, Sam. We’ll be here. Count on it. We’ll get her back.”

“I just hope we haven’t kicked up Arias’s timeline with this bullshit. We may have killed Anita with that piss-poor attempt –“

Bucky put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I know, Sam. Just remember, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s watching, they got teams ready to fry that place with an EMP if he tries to fire up that machine. OK, yeah, we got buttfucked today, but nobody’s giving up. I swear.”

Sam nodded, which Bucky figured was the best he was going to get at the moment. Bucky turned around and took Joss’s hand, leading her from the room and toward the building entrance.

“Do you think you should check on Steve?” She asked.

“Sharon’s with him. He’ll probably text me later, once he’s run out of ways to beat himself up. He doesn’t like to lose.”

“Can’t say I’m real proud right this minute, either,” Joss muttered.

*********

Bruce hadn’t known what to expect from Catherine when he’d returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. He hadn’t been with the team; the Hulk wouldn’t have fit in the truck. He had run up the tunnel behind them, basically acting as a rearguard, then run back to the headquarters building. By the time he’d reached it, he was Bruce again, feeling like an idiot running across the nation’s capital barefoot in his underwear. 

He should have expected that she’d be waiting for him with sweatpants and shoes, and a zip-up hoodie. 

“I’d have brought them to you, but no one knew which way you’d be coming.”

Bruce made a wry face, shaking his head as he took them from her. “Thanks. I guess.”

“Trying to help.”

“I know, it’s just… Look, I’m gonna take a shower. Can you just… not talk to me for a while?”

“Bad luck, love. We have an assignment. You’re going to have to join me in the lab.”

“What assignment?” Bruce handed Catherine back the shoes and sweatshirt, and began to slip the sweatpants on.

“We have to figure out what those collars are.”

“Collars?”

Catherine blinked, then realized that he really didn’t know what she was talking about. And why. 

“How much do you know about what happened?” 

“Loud screech and a wave of some kind of energy. Probably a hypersonic weapon.” He pulled the sweatpants up and reached for the sweatshirt.

“Got it in one,” she confirmed, smiling pleasantly as she handed it to him, seemingly untroubled by the fact that he’d been nine feet tall and green less than half an hour before, and had just finished a run through Washington D.C. wearing nothing but boxer briefs.

“Oh, yeah, and Arias’s guys, they were wearing some kind of collars. That’s right.”

“We need to figure out what those collars are, see if they protect from that weapon. Maybe we can use them, too.”

“Fine. You get started while I shower. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Way ahead of you.” She handed him his shoes and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ve already started photographing the collar.”

Bruce was muttering to himself as he headed down the corridor to the rooms they’d been assigned. He didn’t see the look of pure adoration on her face as she watched him go.

When he’d arrived in the lab, she already had the collar apart, and was photographing the insides. A video camera was recording from above the workbench, and she was using a needle-thin pointer to lift up and move aside components without disturbing them from their settings, narrating what she was seeing. She looked up as he entered.

“Hi. I took the back housing off, I hope you don’t mind. Haven’t moved anything, though.”

“Why isn’t Stark here?”

“He had to make some repairs to his suit and post pictures of Captain America’s facial burns on Facebook. He said he’ll be over within the hour.”

“I wish I thought you were kidding.”

“I’m not actually sure we need him. I’m no mechanical engineer, but this looks to be basically a radio transmitter. Come here and see.”

She was right. Bruce could see immediately that the collars did nothing more sophisticated than emit their own hypersonic frequency, which would cancel out that made by the machine. Arias’s thugs may have been uncomfortable, but they weren’t incapacitated like the unprotected members of the Avengers team had been. Between them, Bruce and Catherine had the collar dissected and reverse engineered before Tony even arrived. 

His hair was dripping wet and he was, as usual, barefoot. His T-shirt was from The Police’s Ghost In The Machine tour in 1981-1982, and his jeans looked to be at least that old.

“Hey. So what’re you two crazy kids up to?” 

“Doing all the work,” Bruce muttered around the pencil in his mouth, which was the same version as the one behind his ear, and looked very like the stylus he was using to draw a schematic of the collar. On a computer. 

Catherine didn’t notice any more than Tony did. They’d both worked with Bruce since he actually did work with a pencil. She tossed a computer tablet at Tony, who caught it in order to avoid having his nose broken.

“I don’t like to be handed things,” he whined loudly.

“I didn’t hand it to you. I threw it. You’re doing the fabrication plans.”

Tony grinned. “Bitch.”

“Arsehole.”

Bruce chuckled past his pencil.

“Everybody’s mad at me today,” Tony noted, as though commenting on the weather.

“Well, Jarman Arias is mad because you tried to blow up his underground lair. Captain America’s mad because his burn is already a meme. And we’re mad because you swan in here when we’ve pretty much got these collars sorted.”

“Whatever,” Tony muttered, already tuning everything else out as he began to type at a speed that was theoretically not possible for human fingers.

Catherine went to stand next to Bruce as he finished his drafting, a quizzical expression on her face. “I have a question. Why aren’t you burned?”

“Did you want me to be?”

“Of course not. I’m just trying to understand.”

He was still on edge, still had an unmistakable aura of shame about him. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’d be burned by hypersonic waves. There’s a lot about the other guy I don’t understand.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re OK. You’ll have to thank him for me.”

She smiled at the pained look he shot her.

 *********  
Steve lay on the bed, arms behind his head and scowling up at the ceiling as though trying to intimidate it into submission. Sharon was sitting cross legged on the other side of the bed, smoothing aloe vera on the burned area where the V-neck of her top had not covered her skin. She didn’t try to affect his mood. She simply sat with him, reminding him by her presence that he was not alone. 

His phone rang, startling them both, and she knew before he answered that it was the President. First, because he practically jumped off the bed to stand at attention, despite the fact that he was wearing only old, soft grey cotton boxers that concealed basically nothing. And second, because he wasted no time putting the call on speaker.

“Sir, Agent Carter is here with me, and I think she should participate in this call.”

“Sure, that’s a good idea,” Burke said, probably completely unaware of the condescending tone in his voice. “My staff is patching Phil Coulson in, as well. While we’re waiting, how’s Joss Emerson? She’s one of mine, you know.”

Coulson’s voice broke in. “Actually, she’s one of mine right now, Ellis. And she’s fine. Barely took any burns from the weapon.”

“Well, that’s good, Phil, because if you let her get hurt, I’m going to let you explain that to Fred Markoff.”

“No problem. Homeland Security should be under S.H.I.E.L.D., anyway.”

“Not a conversation we need to have today, gentlemen,” Steve interjected, in a tone of deep respect. Nonetheless, the fact that he made the comment at all said everything about his mood. Burke may have missed it. Coulson did not.

“Right. Ellis, we’ve found those service vehicles. And they’re too close to the White House. All of them. I’m recommending that you be evacuated to a secure location.”

“More secure than the White House? Come on, Phil-“

“Sir, you’re aware of everything we know about this guy Arias. The man can cause earthquakes. Tornadoes. I concur with Director Coulson, and I’d be happy to personally escort you-“

“I have the Secret Service, Steve. That’s what they do. And you’ve done enough for one day. Let’s wait and see if there’s even anything to worry about with these trucks. Maybe they just needed space in the garage.” Burke gave his trademark hearty chuckle, designed and rehearsed to reassure voters that he had everything under control. 

“Well, Mr. President, that’s not what Fred Markoff and I think. He’s on his way to you now.” On the rare occasions that Phil Coulson called Burke “Mr. President,” it meant the opposite of the way it sounded. It meant that Coulson was giving the orders. And anytime he and the Director of Homeland Security agreed on _anything_ , the President would be wise to pay attention.

“Look, I’m not-“

“If I have to send Captain America into the Oval to extract your ass, I can’t promise it won’t make headlines,” Coulson said quietly.

What Burke’s string of curses lacked in creativity, it made up for in vehemence. 

“I can get you whatever team you want, Ellis,” Coulson soothed. “I can send Joss Emerson.”

“No need,” Burke sighed. “Craig Thomas is just outside my office door right now. They don’t get any better than Craig. You better fucking be right about this, Coulson. I am not particularly gruntled at this moment.”

“I understand that. We wouldn’t be talking if I wasn’t sure.”

“I have _work_ to do, damn it!”

“Then by all means, do it,” Coulson said. “We don’t want to broadcast that you’re not right where they think you are. If they want to try something, we’ll be ready. It’s just best if you work… elsewhere.”

“Fine,” Burke spat.

“Markoff’s just arrived at the White House. I’ve advised him not to go in. The fewer people who see him there, the better. We don’t want to do anything interesting. Thomas will get you to him.”

“What do you need from me, Director?” Steve asked.

“Nothing, right now, Captain. This is gonna be surgical. Craig Thomas and his team will handle it. Besides, you have a mission to complete once we get you those collars. You rest up, take care of those burns. I saw pictures online…”

Steve broke the parade rest he’d been at since the call began to slap a hand to his face, muffling his muttered threats against Tony Stark and his ancestors. 

*********

Joss lived in the upper half of a row house on O Street Northwest, near DuPont Circle. She told Bucky as they walked the few blocks to the Metro stop that she’d paid too much for it, but she’d fallen in love with the rooftop deck and bay window. Which meant that she didn’t have a lot of money left for upgrades, so she warned him not to expect much. 

As if he cared. Bucky hadn’t had a home to call his own since he got his orders in 1943. And when he saw Joss’s apartment, he was enchanted. The building was older than he was, which was an immediate point in its favor. She complained that the plumbing was also that old, but he brushed that off.

“You don’t get it. I know this. This reminds me of Brooklyn. Of course, the places we lived when I grew up were nothing like this – nobody had any money – but it’s familiar. I like it. I like it a lot.”

She could tell he was being genuine, by the way he kept looking around, and the attention he paid to small architectural details that she’d barely noticed. Everything she thought needed updating, he gravitated to. It surprised her. Something about it made her feel strangely emotional, as if he’d shown her something she hadn’t known about him. Which was silly, because she knew everything anyone who’d been to the Smithsonian or read any of the history books knew about how Bucky and Steve had grown up. _Right?_

Joss tossed the pile of mail she’d retrieved from her locked box downstairs onto an old, scarred oak pedestal table in the kitchen area.

“Do you want anything to drink? I’m just going to get some clothes together…” 

“No, it’s… Take your time. I’m fine just hanging out here for a while.” 

She watched him for a moment, eyebrows knit, as he stood looking not at the view outside the window, but at the window itself. It was old, and leaked heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. The glass was single-pane and actually thick enough that it was a little bit warped by time. Hell, it was so ancient, the paint was probably lead-based. She hadn’t bothered repainting because she’d always meant to have the windows replaced. 

She took a few steps toward him. “Hey, you OK?” 

He was smiling wistfully when he looked over at her. “Yeah. I’m good. I just really like your place. Maybe, when this is over, we can spend some time here.” 

“Yeah. Of course we can.” 

Joss and Bucky were both thinking deeply when she turned to go into her tiny bedroom to pack some clothes into a wheeled satchel. He was thinking about Brooklyn, and home, and a yearning he’d never realized he felt until this moment. She was thinking about him. 

*********

It was hours later when the alarm sounded. Not nearly enough hours later in terms of the amount of sleep anyone had gotten, but way too many hours in terms of the meaning of the alarm. 

There was a shocking amount of blood on the rug between the navy blue couches in the Oval Office. So much that the shattered glass table between them had a clear splash pattern along the jagged bottom edge, showing it had been there when the table had been destroyed. Steve nodded in grim appreciation when he learned that most of it was not the President’s. 

He’d put up one hell of a fight; that much was clear. They all had. Two Secret Service agents lay dead, one in the doorway and the other sprawled across the President’s desk. Another was fighting for her life on an operating table at Bethesda. The rest were missing, presumed taken along with the President. 

And some of the blood was fucking _dry_ already. Coulson swore again, literally stamping a foot in impotent fury. “How the _fuck_ does someone kidnap the President and nobody sees? Nobody even _notices_ he’s fucking missing?” 

He was aiming his words at Director Markoff, who aimed his right back. “Seems to me _I_ should be asking _you_ that question, Coulson. ‘This is a S.H.I.E.L.D. operation,’ remember? You insisted you had jurisdiction over this clusterfuck. Well congratulations.” 

“You wanna go there, Fred? You were _here. I sent you here to get him._ What the fuck happened?” 

“I told you what happened. One minute I’m sitting in the garage waiting for them to extract him, the next I’m waking up in a puddle of… Anyway, I was drugged. And since the only other person in my car was Special Agent Johnson, that means she’s dirty. She’s also missing. And where the hell were your guys who were supposed to be watching those service vehicles?” 

“Have we heard anything from Arias?” Sharon asked, trying to be inconspicuous about physically placing herself between the two men. They could have a blame-off later. “Has anyone contacted us about the President? Ransom demands, ‘fuck you’s, _anything_?” 

“No,” Director Coulson answered. “Nothing. And all those damn service vehicles are still right where they were.” 

“Decoys?” Steve asked. 

“Who the fuck knows? We had them all under surveillance, which spread us pretty thin, but… Nothing.” 

Thus far, the press hadn’t caught wind of the calamity, but they were sure to see the continuous flash of the cameras photographing every square millimeter of the scene. It was after two a.m.; a little late for a Presidential photo op. 

“How about communications traffic?” Sharon asked Markoff. “Anything there?” 

To Markoff’s credit, he gave Sharon, and her question, their due weight. “FBI’s working on something. They should’ve been brought in on this from the beginning, when you first found that bunker,” he directed those words pointedly to Coulson. “But now that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s seen fit to let us know of a threat of this magnitude _right in our own back yard_ ,” another glare. “We’re on it.” 

“On what, precisely?” Sharon asked, demonstrating a little of the attitude that simply commanded cooperation. 

“On some dark web traffic. Little bit of contemporaneous traffic from an unusual number of burner phones concentrated here and at the bunker.” 

“And you’re working with S.H.I.E.L.D. on that?” She pressed. 

“What, like S.H.I.E.L.D. worked with us?” 

“Director Markoff, do I need to remind you that the President of the United States is missing? Is that really something you want to dick around on because your feelings got hurt? Because I don’t think you really want to have to explain that when this is over.” 

Steve may have been pulled as taut as one of Clint’s bowstrings over what was happening to Anita Herrera, and now the President. But he still had room in his mind to be seriously impressed, and – God help him – turned on by Sharon right this minute. He was _so_ going to need her to talk to him like that later. 

*********

The room was poured concrete: walls, ceiling, floor. And the door was another of those damn steel bank-vault doors. There was no busting out of here. Not that Anita could consider that anymore, anyway, since they’d yanked open the door and thrown the President in with her. He was bloody and unconscious, breathing like he had some broken ribs, and one eye was already swollen shut. The laceration, surrounded by a rapidly-developing bruise, on his chin made her worry about a broken jaw, but he was moving it as he moaned, so she didn’t think so. His left hand was a mess. Clearly, he’d given back some of what he’d gotten. But his dilated pupils told her he hadn’t stood a chance, not really, because eventually they’d drugged him. He had yet to wake up. 

Anita tended to his wounds as best she could, but she was still wearing the stupid cocktail dress she’d worn to dinner with Arias, so it wasn’t like she had any extra fabric to make bandages with. All she could really do was to position him on his side, so that his airway was as open as possible and he hopefully wouldn’t aspirate if he vomited. 

_All right, Sam. Time to do some of that Avengers shit._

She hadn’t seen Arias since she’d been taken at the restaurant. She hadn’t seen anyone, actually. She’d been drugged, too, by that bitch in the restroom, and the next thing she’d known she was in this room, shivering and retching as she shook off whatever she’d been injected with. She wondered what it meant that Arias now had the President – _the fucking_ President, _how the hell do you pull_ that _off?_ – down here, under his control. 

She looked over at President Burke. He was still unconscious, but moaning more and moving his limbs now. His injuries reminded her that he’d been a Navy SEAL. She hoped it wouldn’t come to a fight, but if it did, she supposed she could have had a worse cellmate.


	23. Kind Of A Douche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The would-be savior of Earth is kind of annoyingly full of himself. The Avengers team tries to stop him from killing Anita and destroying Washington, D.C.

Jarman Arias stood fondling his machine as it emitted its sickly green light. He hated that he had to rely on the foul green orbs he purchased at an obscene cost from a lowlife who’d smuggled them to Earth from the outlaw markets inside Knowhere. Arias didn’t know the origin of the orbs, which was fine with him. The less he knew about the alien crystals he’d had to contaminate himself with to get what he wanted, the better. At least he’d made sure that lowlife smuggler didn’t live to enjoy his profit. The poor fool was one of the very first to be used in a test of the machine. Arias remembered the satisfaction he felt, listening to the man’s screams. It was fit punishment for a traitor to the human race, dealing with dirty rabble from some inferior world. 

Arias clenched his fists in rage at the idea of those filthy Asgardian vermin, whom he particularly hated. Treading Terran soil as though they didn’t defile it, with their glowing stones and their pomposity and their ridiculous costumes. At least now, they would never be able to return. Nor would the real evil: those _malparido, gonorrea_ Chitauri. 

Arias had been in New York the day the Chitauri came. He had been inside a building, hadn’t even been on the street. He’d been sitting at a large, beautiful table in the hushed, very well-appointed offices of one of his investment bankers. He should have been safe. But the nightmarish, insectoid creatures with machine parts obscenely grafted into their bodies had poured through a hole in the sky, riding some sort of hovering chariots, invading and rampaging at will through the city. And the Avengers? The Avengers had protected no one. The Avengers had been part of the problem. Their wholly destructive – and entirely ineffectual – frenzy of violence had only made things much, much worse. Arias believed it was Thor – another beastly invader – who had hurled that glorified mallet of his into the side of the very building where Arias had been cowering, watching with horror as monsters filled the skies. 

A hole five stories high had opened up in the building, leaving Arias kneeling only a few feet from open air, seventy floors above the street. And one of those repulsive reptiles had driven its chariot-thing, with the corpse of its accomplice still onboard, into the very room where Arias clung to the base of the massive table. He’d been too afraid to scream. He had lost control of his bowels and bladder, and could only weep in near-catatonic terror. 

Several more invaders had passed the hole in the building, making a noise that still haunted Arias, as the Chitauri beast had dismounted and begun to move toward him. Arias whimpered and drooled, knowing that he had seconds to live before the thing devoured him. Suddenly, his eyes had been drawn to movement behind the creature as that tawdry, red-and-gold electrified tin man blasted one of the flying chariots with his laser beams or whatever the hell they were. The chariot cartwheeled into the building, very near the giant hole that bastard Thor had made, shattering on impact. Shards of hot metal and some sort of burning liquid sprayed into the room. The Chitauri that had been menacing Arias was… How to describe the horrifying sight of the hideous body being torn apart by the fragmented craft, limbs flying and a large hunk of torso landing in Arias’s lap? 

But that hadn’t been the worst part. The worst part was the disgusting, putrid sludge the creatures apparently called blood, which had spewed from his severed carcass all over Arias, entering his eyes, his nose, his mouth... Even now, recalling that moment and the vile, rotten stench, Arias retched and had to force himself not to vomit.

He hadn’t been rescued. Not one of the Avengers, the so-called heroes of the day, had tried to help. Instead, he remembered seeing that jumped-up clown who called himself Captain America, presumptuously directing the pitiful feint at clean-up afterward. And then the Avengers, those disgraceful, insolent, unspeakably arrogant _pendejos_ , had simply gone home to their skyscraper. 

Arias swore violently, his voice rumbling deep in his chest with the primal rage he felt remembering his horror and helplessness on that day. It would not happen again. 

He turned quickly away from the machine, his purple cape swirling around him, and stalked out of the room toward the lower levels. He wanted to check on his guests. Very important guests, actually. Now he smiled with the conceit of a feral cat watching its morally wounded prey writhe under its paw. 

He hadn’t even had the idea to “invite” his guests until they, themselves suggested it. But once he had learned that S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and the United States government all knew of his machines, he knew he had to do something. And when he’d learned that the lovely Anita Herrera, with whom he had been so intrigued, was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, he’d been furious. That had, of course, led him to realize that he would not be enjoying the prestige of employing The Falcon as he’d dreamed, because he had to assume that Sam Wilson was a spy, too. 

The idea of the Avengers doing something so ignominious as acting as bodyguards at the Presidential event had always seemed suspicious to him. So he’d set some of his staff to doing research and headed off to his villa for a relaxing weekend. The research team had reviewed the surveillance from the bunker on the night of the tornado, and found footage of beautiful Anita creeping around. Which, of course, had led to a review of the video surveillance of the villa. 

Arias had very much enjoyed some of the video of Anita and Sam in their room. But he had decidedly _not_ enjoyed the footage of Anita searching his office, and discovering the ancient implements in their padded drawer, not to mention the robes he was currently wearing.

Arias had considered being ashamed by the fact that he, himself, had been in the room and missed Anita’s covert search on the night of the tornado. He had also actually invited the spies to his own villa. But he was not a security guard. Those were not his failures. 

Then, when he’d investigated further, he had learned of the red-haired infiltrator who had been allowed not only to enter his facility, but to wander about unescorted! His guards had fallen for the very simplest of ruses and, worse, had tried to hide from him what they’d done. That level of unprofessionalism, of course, could not be tolerated. He had simply killed the other guards responsible for that breach, but he needed to set an example. Santiago Cárdenas had therefore been the resource who piloted the machine that created the earthquake in Washington D.C. 

Still, Arias hadn’t had the idea of “inviting” his guests until Anita Herrera, supposedly a well-regarded S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, had contacted him to suggest they meet. He had wondered what to do about her and Sam Wilson, but when she agreed to simply walk into a restaurant to offer herself to him? The idea had sprung into his mind fully-formed. He had enjoyed their dinner together, watching her spout her transparent lies and try to seduce him. And afterward, he had decided that it was time to utilize his access to the so-called most powerful man in the world. That had actually been somewhat disappointing, really. Arias had simply called his operative in the White House and the pitiful little President had been brought to him almost immediately, like ordering a pizza. 

The two would die, of course, as would Sam Wilson. But not before they got him what he wanted. Because he would never, ever, be made to cower again. He had started with intentions of the purest altruism. All he wanted to do was protect the Earth. Of course, none of his top echelon of advisers had supported him in that. They had always argued that he should announce his mastery to the world, be acknowledged for his power, and be rewarded accordingly. He always replied had not done his work for that. But now they had forced his hand, tried to destroy one of his facilities, and were once again imperiling the world with their reckless stupidity. So they would pay the price. How did these fools, who courted invasion with their own wildly irresponsible actions, dare to stand against the only man who could defend the planet? 

Arias was deeply, venomously angry. He allowed his rage to flow like lava through his chest. He was in control now, and he would keep the world safe from further violation. By either alien infestation, or these smug, imperious children who called themselves by the hopelessly vainglorious name of the Avengers. 

He left the room where his beautiful machine hummed, striding the short distance down the corridor to the end, where it took a sharp right turn. This was the very lowest level of the facility. At the end of the hallway, there was a wider space, and at the back of that space, a door. Guards stood on either side of that door, although there was really no need. For one thing, there was no way to open that door from the inside. And for another, only Arias and his most trusted lieutenant had the key. 

He wanted very much to go into the room, to talk with his guests. He had toyed with the idea of having Anita brought to him, to enjoy her before she piloted the machine. He had no hope that S.H.I.E.L.D. will see reason, of course. He knew that, when he declared himself and demanded that S.H.I.E.L.D. acknowledge him, deliver Sam Wilson to him, and imprison all of the other Avengers and their allies, S.H.I.E.L.D. would refuse. That pompous fool Coulson had enjoyed just enough minor success that he would imagine himself and his organization able to deny Arias what he demanded. 

Which meant that Anita, alas, would have to be sacrificed. She would be the resource that would pilot the machine to destroy Washington D.C. But he hoped that, once that lesson has been taught, the United States would see reason and capitulate to save their President and avoid further destruction. Once America, that boastful, swaggering giant, was under his thumb, of course, surrender by the rest of the world was only a matter of time.

Arias stood tall, looking contemptuously at the screen that showed Anita Herrera sitting ungracefully on the floor, the President next to her resting against a wall, leaning weakly against her. He appeared to have regained consciousness, but he did not look well. Arias smiled. What a foolish man, to think that he had power, to think that he was any match for the Custodian of the planet. 

It was time. Arias swept out of the area outside the holding room and strode back up the corridor, past the room where his machine glowed and purred as its caretakers tended to it. He entered the crowded control room, pleased to hear an awed hush precede him as he crossed to the center. 

He nodded to the technician who had been awaiting his arrival, and the technician flicked a switch. Just like that, Jarman Arias, the Custodian, was broadcasting on every screen in the world currently powered up and connected to any cable television system, any streaming service, or any internet site. 

“I am the Custodian of this planet,” he began ponderously. “It is my role to protect her, and you, from invasion from outside. I _will_ protect Earth, and her people. And my first step in doing so is to remove those who would aid alien species to attack us, people who have betrayed their own kind, and will do so again, if allowed. I am talking about S.H.I.E.L.D., and those abominations who call themselves the Avengers.”

  
  
“Man, this guy’s kind of a douche,” Clint whispered to Natasha as they watched from their assigned position. 

  
  


“I have two guests here in the facility where I am currently located.” Arias signaled the technician, who touched a screen that switched the video being broadcast. All those screens were now seeing Anita and the President as they sat on the floor of the room where they were imprisoned.

“That man is the President of the United States. He may look different than you are used to seeing him, but I think his current state is a more accurate reflection of his real status than his usual posturing.”

  
  


“This guy wants to talk about posturing? While he’s wearing _that_?” Bruce muttered to Catherine in the close quarters of their location. 

Catherine snorted. “Wanker.”

  
  


Arias continued. “That woman’s name is Anita Herrera. She is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., a spy, and a criminal. Today, she is going to do something very important. For you. For humankind. What that is will be determined by S.H.I.E.L.D. and its Director. Agent Herrera will deliver to me two things I demand: absolute control over S.H.I.E.L.D. and Sam Wilson, who fancies himself a hero and calls himself the Falcon. Or, if Director Coulson chooses, Agent Herrera will destroy Washington D.C. Director Coulson, you’ve just been sent instructions for contacting me. Do so within thirty minutes. If you do not, you will have chosen to reduce America’s capital to rubble.”

  
  


“I really hate it when I’m right,” Sam snarled into the comms. 

“We all do, Falcon,” Steve replied. “’Cause you always have to point it out. You in place?”

“Fuckin’ A.”

  
  


Sharon Carter knew a lot of people who were quite skilled at swearing. She actually didn’t know many people who _didn’t_ swear. All of her military friends and acquaintances could swear fluently and creatively, and certainly S.H.I.E.L.D. was peopled by some of the very best. Not one of them could hold a candle to Phil Coulson. She has always admired his ability to combine, twist, and conjugate foul language into lyrical expressions of both satisfaction and displeasure. 

Currently, Coulson was marching back and forth before a bank of monitors and instruments, waving his arms to punctuate his expletive-filled reaction to Arias’s announcement. It was an astounding display of vulgar eloquence Sharon wished could be recorded for posterity. 

She simply stood back to appreciate the performance. They had thirty minutes, and they already knew the answer he would deliver to Arias. 

“Is the team in place?” Coulson asked Sharon. 

“Getting there, Director. Vision is assisting everyone to access their positions. He reports that sixty per cent of the force is good to go. He estimates the rest will be at their assigned locations in fifteen. He can enter from anywhere, so we’ll be ready in plenty of time.”

“Tell him to do it in ten. This Arias fuckwit pisses me off.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“The Custodian,” he scoffed. “Lamest fuckin’ name. Relinquish S.H.I.E.L.D? My skinny, white ass I will.”

Sharon had to work very, very hard not to look at Director Coulson’s ass as she contacted Vision.

  
  


Arias turned to the technicians at various stations in the control room. “Tell me when Coulson makes contact.”

“Yes, Custodian.” 

He did another of those turns that billowed his cape behind him satisfyingly, then stalked across the room and down the corridor toward the machine. Arias’s lieutenants followed at his heels. They understood that now was the time to tell him that he had delivered his message powerfully and masterfully. They, of course, did not disappoint him.

“Bring the woman,” he said to Olviedo, his second in command, as they walked. “It’s time to get her prepared.”

When Arias turned into the room with the machine, Olviedo continued down the corridor to the locked room where Anita and the President waited. He approached the thick, metal door, but before he inserted his key, he gave instructions to the guards to be especially careful. The President had been drugged and beaten, but he was still not to be underestimated. The guards nodded and took positions just behind him, so that he missed their momentary eye contact and slight nods to one another. 

Neither Anita nor President Burke got up when they entered. Olviedo brusquely ordered Anita to stand, with the oh-so-predictable result that Burke objected. While the guards took a struggling Anita by her arms, Olviedo dealt with him. Burke almost got to his feet, but Olviedo landed a surprisingly powerful blow to his left temple, knocking him to the floor once more. Olviedo was occupied, which meant he was entirely unaware of the activity behind him as he kicked Burke unconscious with one quick, well-placed strike of his boot heel.

Anita fought against the guards’ hold, even as one of them deactivated his nanomask, just long enough to show Anita his face. He signaled her to continue her cries and struggles while the other guard briefly deactivated his mask, while she shouted defiantly and resisted. Continuing to scream and fight was easy enough – she was genuinely terrified of this situation, after all – and it kept Oliviedo from seeing her reaction to the fact that the guards were Marcus Turell and Bucky Barnes.

Olviedo re-locked the heavy door and signaled for the guards to bring Anita and follow him.

When she arrived in the machine room, Arias smiled warmly at Anita, as though pleased to see her. Which wasn’t entirely false; she was a beautiful woman, and wearing that torn cocktail dress and fearful expression, she looked like several of his darkest fantasies. She feigned unconcerned disgust at seeing him, which didn’t fool him for a second, but he appreciated the attempt nonetheless. He did like a woman with some fire to her. 

“Ah, _mi_ Anita,” he greeted her, taking her hand. She attempted to pull it roughly back, but he had her wrist in a grip tight enough to leave a mark. 

“You son of a bitch,” she spat. He stepped backward, pulling her with him, and she fought him all the way past the corner of the machine, where her eyes widened as she was confronted with a coffin-like receptacle extending from the machine at thigh level like a drawer. 

That was it for her ability to play along with whatever was about to happen. She turned abruptly away from him, jerking her wrist from his grip. Continuing to move in the same direction, she stepped backward, stomping on his foot with the spiked heel of her shoe while swinging her elbow into his face. He stumbled backward, hands clasping to his head, leaving his abdomen wide open for the vicious kick she launched. Her heel probably would have punctured his flesh, were it not for the ridiculous robe thing he was wearing under his cape.

She would’ve continued to go after him, except that she was suddenly looking down the barrels of two sidearms in the hands of the guards, and covered by half a dozen more from others in the room. 

“What are you wearing, Arias, you asshole, Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat?” She huffed furiously, breathing heavily from her exertion. “Is the ‘C’ for caricature?”

“Put her in!” Arias roared, injured and humiliated before his men, which made him angry enough to kill her himself, if only he hadn’t needed her to pilot the machine. As it was, he knocked her into the drawer-like receptacle with a vicious backhand that left her bleeding and disoriented.

The guards wrestled her into the drawer-thing, strapping her limbs down as she struggled, spitting and cursing. Then, as she screamed, the reservoir retracted smoothly until Anita was entirely within the machine. 

“Custodian, S.H.I.E.L.D. has made contact,” a technician announced. “I can connect you whenever you’re ready.”

“Excellent,” Arias responded, pulling roughly on his robe to straighten it, then running a hand through his hair in an attempt to put himself to rights. _Fucking bitch. I will enjoy listening to her die._ “Begin the program.”

Several of the technicians began to push buttons and throw switches, while one typed something that appeared as strange symbols on a monitor in the control surface of the machine. One of Arias’s lieutenants brought a long, rectangular metal case towards him, holding the case so that the catch faced him. Arias opened it, revealing the metallic objects Anita had found in his office on Marathon Key.

These objects upset him, just as the orbs did. They were the reason for the long, black gauntlets he wore, although he admitted to himself that fashion, too, played in a role in choosing those. He did not want to touch the implements, tainted as they were from being not of Earth. They horrified him, really, with their repulsive markings and the heavy, shifting weight of them, as though something alive was trapped inside.

The machine was now making a number of sounds, as Anita’s muffled screams and the thumps of her attempts to escape could be heard from the compartment where she was imprisoned. The machine whirred and clicked, whined occasionally, and made other unidentifiable noises as… _something_ happened inside it. Anita’s cries reached a crescendo, then quickly slowed, quieted, and then stopped.

“Connect me with S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Arias ordered imperiously, lifting the first metal object from the case. It was irregularly-shaped, with multiple surfaces, all at different angles and of different sizes. It was strangely luminescent, which seemed impossible, given that it was metal. That was another thing Arias didn’t trust about them. 

“Arias-“ Phil Coulson’s voice was heard from several speakers around the room.

“I am the Custodian,” he corrected. “That is how you will address me.”

“Yeah, not likely. I just called to tell you to suck my dick.”

At S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Sharon stifled a laugh.

“Your Agent Herrera will die, and your capital will be destroyed,” Arias said matter-of-factly.

“Meh. Climate in D.C. sucks, anyway. Maybe they’ll rebuild somewhere better.” There was a soft beeping sound.

Arias whirled toward the technician. “Did we lose the connection?” He really did not want to contemplate the humiliation of having his conquest of the planet hampered by something as pedestrian as technical difficulties.

“Uh… No, Custodian. It, uh… S.H.I.E.L.D. has ended transmission.”

Bucky, standing to the side, very determinedly did not smirk at the idea of Coulson hanging up on this grandiose jagoff. 

Arias was incensed, and yanked hard on a small lever near the top of the machine, where it was bathed in the ugly green glow coming from the multiple openings in the level above. The noise of a small motor accompanied the sight of a small hatch opening. Inside the hatch was a simple compartment, the exact size and shape of the implement Arias held in his hand. It took him a moment, given its very irregular surface, to find the correct orientation, but when he did, the object slid home and the compartment lit with more of that eerie green light. Arias shoved the lever back up, and the compartment closed. The sound from the machine changed.

  


“OK, the feed from Bucky’s body cam is showing Arias starting with those objects,” Sharon said into the comms. 

Coulson’s voice could be heard next. “Go time, Cap.”

“About fuckin’ time,” Sam’s exhale came over the comms. Steve didn’t comment on that, because he agreed. 

“First wave, go!” Steve ordered. 

  


Arias had just finished placing the second implement into its niche when he heard shocked voices over the sound of the machine. He looked up and was startled to see Vision, that machine-made red abomination, who had just come through the wall. At the same time, Arias could hear shouts and gunshots begin up the corridor, seemingly from the control room. 

He did not panic. He knew these adversaries, knew they had freakish powers and would try to resist him. He simply touched the ornately decorated collar at his throat, barked a command and went back to his work, pulling down the third lever perhaps more quickly than he had done the first two. The scream of the ultrasonic weapon filled the air.

Vision ignored everyone in the room, simply tossing them out of the way, as he moved to the side of the machine away from the control surfaces at which the technicians were working. He began trying to tear panels off of the machine. Bullets ricocheted off of him, which actually took out one of Arias’s lieutenants. The rest of the men in the room rushed to find cover. 

Arias screamed at them to stay where they were, and to stop firing. There was no cover, and the only one hurt by the bullets was on their side. They would have to find another way to deal with Vision. The pilot’s mind was even now being programmed with visions of the destruction she was to cause once the energy began to penetrate, and then saturate, her body. They just needed to keep Vision from doing much damage. He couldn’t, really, not from where he was hacking and tearing at the machines’ cowling. Perhaps he could disable the ultrasonic weapon, but that was a small matter. Arias’s guards would simply have to deal with any intruders. Or not. Once the machine was activated and Washington destroyed, Arias himself had a personal escape route that would allow him to simply leave the facility, and the guards, to their fate. 

He continued to place the implements into the machine. Four in, three to go. 

  
  


“Second wave, go!” Steve’s voice came through the comms.

Like cockroaches, black figures began pouring into the bunker through every access tunnel big enough to fit one, and a few that really weren’t big enough, but Vision was one determined dude, whom none of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents wanted to cross. Once they began entering, the flow of agents in tac gear into the bunker didn’t stop.

Arias’s armed guards fought desperately, and knew the underground facility much better than the agents. Still, the agents’ training and numbers gave them the advantage. Besides which, they had Captain America, Ironman, Hawkeye, the Black Widow, and Ant-man with them. It really wasn’t a fair fight, but the Avengers didn’t want a fair fight. Not today. Arias had kidnapped one of theirs, and they were still steamed from their defeat the day before. The lunch room where poor Santi had first brought Natasha began to be filled with disarmed, frightened bad guys.

  


Joss and Wanda, along with three other agents, only paid enough attention to Arias’s men to avoid being shot. Their mission was to rescue the President, not to engage anyone except as necessary to get to where he was being held. They encountered a surprising number of Arias’s men who, not knowing that they’d already lost, fought fiercely. One popped out from a side corridor, grabbing Joss by the neck and holding a gun to her head.

“I don’t care who the hell you people are,” the guy said in heavily-accented English. “I just want out. Get out of my way and I won’t-“

That was all he got out before Joss made her move, flipping him over her shoulder. Wanda caught him in mid-air, and he found himself slamming into, then sliding down the opposite wall of the corridor, upside-down, to land painfully on his head. One of the agents took his gun, and they moved on, leaving him for someone else to deal with. 

  
  


Sam was not happy about having to help herd up Arias’s men before he could get to Anita. He had to keep ruthlessly stomping down thoughts of her as he and his team worked their assigned corridor, one where they didn’t expect to find many men. He’d reluctantly agreed that he was too emotionally involved to have been assigned the role one of the guards - not that Steve was likely to back down on that - but still, it was hard. Sam might have taken some chances he shouldn’t have, and was perhaps rougher than he would normally be with the men he disarmed once they surrendered, but who could blame him? He trusted Vision, Bucky, and Marcus Turell to keep Arias from activating that machine, but he wanted like hell to be there, already holding her and getting her the fuck out of this hole.

  
  


Arias now had the last implement in his hand, as Vision fought with guards who tried to subdue him physically. He couldn’t use the energy from the mind stone, for fear of hitting the machine. Tearing into its guts was taking longer than they’d planned, because he kept having to consult Bruce and Catherine. The two were monitoring Vision’s progress from nearby, outside the bunker, as to which wires or circuit boards to tear out next. But no matter how much of its guts Vision tore out, it didn’t seem to be stopping whatever the machine was doing. As Arias continued to place the objects, the noise was getting progressively louder, the green glow brighter. Soon, Vision was going to have to give up trying to disable the machine and stop Arias from activating it.

There were many other machines throughout the world. They needed to know how Arias activated them, so that they could destroy them without accidentally triggering them. They had no idea how many sets of those weird objects he’d inserted into it might exist. Perhaps one for each machine. They needed to know how to activate the machines, so they would know how not to. Arias certainly wasn’t going to tell them, no matter what they did to try to convince him. So Vision had to let Arias continue until the last possible second. And he had to be right. If not, Anita’s body would be shot through with a beam of energy much more than capable of killing her.

It was a frenzied, slow-motion race that had those monitoring it at S.H.I.E.L.D. and in the mobile command post near the bunker completely on edge.

Bucky and Markus, meanwhile, had been busy taking out guards and technicians. In keeping with Steve’s usual order, they used non-lethal force wherever they could, and sent many disarmed guards and unarmed technicians flying into the corridor with instructions to get out of the bunker. They wouldn’t get out, of course; they’d meet the rest of the team. But they didn’t know that.

As he tossed two more screaming guards into the corridor, Bucky saw Joss and her team jogging down toward him. In her black tac gear, armed to the teeth, her hair once again in that businesslike French twist, she easily could’ve distracted him if he’d allowed it. He gave her a cheeky salute and a grin, which he was pleased to notice made her flush an adorable pink, and went back to work.

  
  


The door to the room where the President was being held needed a key. That was unexpected, but S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers were pretty used to the unexpected. Joss signaled to one of the agents, who began shaping plastic explosives on the hinges. Joss banged on the door and tried to yell to President Burke to get as far away as he could, but on the monitor, he didn’t seem to hear anything through the massive metal door. At least he wasn’t right next to it.

The agent gave them a signal and the team retreated behind the bend in the corridor. At a nod from Joss, she called “Fire in the hole!” and triggered the charges.

Seconds later, the team came around the corner again, to find the door entirely intact. Joss displayed some of the colorful language she’d learned in the Air Force.

  
  


Steve and his team had cleaned out the rooms in three of the five corridors, and had run out of space in the room where they were putting those they’d disarmed. The conference room became a second holding cell, once Ironman welded all but one door shut. Now it was time to deal with the armory room. Tactically, it was a lousy situation. Several of Arias’s goons had shut themselves up in the room, with who knew how many weapons and an unknown quantity of ammunition. The team stood just around a turn in the corridor and discussed what to do. Ant-Man couldn’t go in and do recon, because the metal doors were airtight; there was no way for him to get in. Ironman was going to have to burn through the door, which was going to take time and give those inside plenty of time to plan their defense. The only good news was that damned hypersonic weapon was finally disabled. They all triggered the buttons on their collars to turn them off, grateful for the relative silence and an end to the uncomfortable pressure on their bodies.

  
  


Arias didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what was going on in the room around him, as the machine reached a painful scream of volume. When Vision saw him place the final object into its niche, Bucky and Marcus watched from behind Arias, ignored, as he pushed buttons, turned dials, and flicked switches in a sequence long enough that Bucky was glad for the body cams – he was never going to remember that shit. Arias then looked up, and they heard the unmistakable sound of Anita screaming inside the machine. 

That was that. Vision had to be satisfied with the amount of destruction he’d caused the machine so far and turn to Arias. He launched himself over the machine, colliding with Arias just as he touched a final lever on the control console, and sent Arias flying. Marcus took Arias’s place at the controls, and simply began reversing the sequence of what Arias had just done. Bucky didn’t have much time to be impressed with his memory, because he was around the side of the machine, removing a short pry bar that had been hanging from his belt. There was a muffled explosion from the hallway, which no one in the machine room paid any attention to, as Vision dealt with Arias, Marcus dealt with the machine, and Bucky tried to free Anita.

  
  


Joss and Wanda’s team stood looking at the hinges of the door, now devoid of paint but still very much intact. 

“I don’t know what I can do here,” Wanda said. “But let me try.”

A stream of scarlet flowed from her fingertips to the door and around it, outlining it and the hinges and latch. It was beautiful, but Wanda scowled. “Not that way, apparently. I think we’re going to have to go old school. Back around the corner.”

“Wait, what are you gonna do?” Joss asked.

“Blow the door in. Brutish, but effective.”

“And probably fatal. That’ll blast the door right into the President. Look where he is.”

On the monitor, the President was, indeed, slumped against the wall, directly across from the door. He was awake and alert; he’d heard the initial attempt to blow the hinges, but he didn’t look like he was going to move anytime soon.

“Anyone got any bright ideas?”

For a few moments, the team stood looking dumbly at the door, minds considering and rejecting option after option.

“Do you suppose…” Joss cocked her head, squinting at the door thoughtfully.

Wanda turned to look at Joss. She could see that Joss wasn’t just staring at the door. She was doing something, and Wanda correctly guessed that she was using her telekinesis somehow. “What is it?” 

“Shhhh. Bucky and I discovered I can sort of… feel things, even if I can’t see them. I’m trying to… see how this lock works. It’s not easy by feel.”

“Why?”

“My dad’s a locksmith. I love locks. Used to play with them when I was a kid. I might be able to figure this one out.”

  
  


Arias was beyond furious. He was outraged that this magenta horror was trying to stop him from doing what was necessary to protect the world. He was just angry enough to consider the unthinkable. It would, of course, destroy this machine and make it impossible to level the city as he’d planned, at least for a time. Arias truly hadn’t thought he would need to use the Pulse. But he was otherwise unarmed and his entire cadre of lieutenants, guards, and assistants appeared to have abandoned him, except for two. Although now that he considered it, he realized they weren’t doing anything to help him. Rather, they were doing something to his machine while this Vision creature lifted Arias from the floor by his neck.

He sighed dramatically. “The Avengers. Always part of the problem.” 

He squeezed the small trigger in his hand. 

The men in the armory room apparently decided not to wait to be trapped by the Avengers in an inescapable shooting gallery. Without warning, the door was flung open and heavily armed men boiled out of the room. There was a shocking number of them, and the element of surprise gave them a split second to already be among the Avengers when the team shook off their surprise and began to fight back. Scott disappeared into insect size, and soon every member of the team was dodging bullets and fighting one or more armed men. 

  
  


Sam’s team threw the last of the men they’d cleaned out of their corridors into the conference room. He didn’t even bother saying anything to the rest of his team, or the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents guarding the conference room door, before sprinting down the corridor toward the machine room. 

He didn’t make it.

  
  


The door to the President’s cell clicked loudly and a crack appeared between the edge of the door and the frame. “You know what?” Joss smiled. “When this is over? I’m totally rethinking my stance on mutant pride. Might even read some of that Xavier guy’s stuff. Because you gotta admit, that was pretty cool.”

The team quickly burst into the room and Joss threw herself to her knees, sliding the last foot or so toward the President. 

“Sir?” She looked into his face, very pleasantly surprised to see that, when he opened his eyes, there was a glittering fire in them. 

“You get Arias?” He asked hoarsely.

“Not yet, Sir, but it’s in process.” She reached behind her to accept the first aid kit one of the agents handed her. 

At that moment, the comms went nuts. Steve was hollering for backup and there was a host of overlapping chatter that made it clear there was a serious firefight going on. 

“Natasha’s down! We need every swingin’ dick up here NOW!”

Joss and Wanda exchanged glances. Joss didn’t even have to ask. “No, he doesn’t usually talk like that. It’s bad. I need to go.”

“Yes. Go,” Joss told her. “Mr. President, can you shoot a gun right now?”

Burke made what Joss assumed was his war face. It was pretty gruesome, especially with the injures to his face. “Absolutely,” he growled.

That was good enough for Joss. She looked up from the bandage she was applying. “All of you. Go. I got the President.”

  
  


That was when the lights went out and all of the omnipresent sound of humming power, and the screaming coming from the machine down the corridor ceased abruptly. It was immediately disorienting, the quiet even moreso than the dark.

Vision simply crashed to the floor and didn’t move. The machine continued to glow hideously, which is how Bucky and Marcus saw Arias seemingly disappear into the wall. They both ignored everything except the desperate calls for help that had begun erupting from their comms. Saving their team took priority over chasing Arias, or even checking on Vision. He’d be fine; he’d just been powered down.

Bucky swore as he pulled his night-vision goggles from his belt and donned them. This is why he hated when Steve split them up on missions. That dumbass always got himself into shit, which meant Bucky had to get him out of it.


	24. Call If You Find Moria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avengers hijinks in the evil villain's underground lair.

Arias turned the course of the battle when he activated the pulse that shut down all the power. But he turned it in the wrong direction.

Everybody was surprised when the lights went out, but the Avengers and their S.H.I.E.L.D. team were prepared. After all, the possibility of sudden darkness wasn’t that hard to foresee when they were fighting underground. The gunfire had stopped, of course, since no one could see to aim, which gave the team time to put on night vision goggles. After that, it was shooting fish in a barrel for the Avengers, because they could see, and the bad guys couldn’t.

Sam ran up on the fight in time to catch two of Arias’s men trying to escape by feeling their way along the wall. He saw that his teammates were subduing the guards and sitting them down against a wall with their fingers laced behind their heads, until S.H.I.E.L.D. agents could escort them two by two to the makeshift conference room / holding cell.

_Fuck that._ Anita was in trouble. Sam knocked his guys both unconscious and kept on going.

He had to punch and shove his way through the throng of idiots still blindly trying to fight, which he probably shouldn’t have enjoyed as much as he did. Eventually, though, he got to the other side and could finally run flat-out down the corridor toward the machine room.

  
  
  


The first thing President Burke asked for was an earpiece so he could hear the chatter on the comms. Joss treated him with the bare minimum of first aid, because that was all he would allow. Even then, he grumbled impatiently the whole time, whenever they weren’t listening to the team communicate. Joss found that first aid was actually a little easier using the night vision goggles, because blood showed up darker in the green glow. When she was done, she helped Burke to stand, then watched as he stretched, rolling his shoulders and his neck stiffly.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get this done.”

In the complete darkness, Joss took his wrist and lifted his hand to place a pair of goggles into it. “Huh,” he grunted appreciatively. “Thought I was gonna have to let you lead me out.”

He winced when he pulled the straps over the now-dressed wound on his temple, and they were clearly uncomfortable over his swollen eye, but he didn’t make a noise. 

“Hey. These are nice. Way lighter and more compact than the ones we had.”

“Stark tech, Sir.”

Once President Burke finished adjusting his goggles, Joss handed him the sidearm that had been strapped to her thigh and turned toward the door.

“C’mon, Joss. You can’t be better armed than me.”

She turned back, a slight smirk on her face. “It is literally my job to be better armed than you.”

“I want another gun and at least two knives. And don’t tell me you don’t have them, because I can see four right now. Which, from what I hear, means you have at least eight on you.”

Joss blew out her breath in only partially mock irritation, reaching to the small of her back to hand him the Skorpion she wore there.

“Now we’re talkin’,” Burke smiled, testing the heft of the weapon and nodding in appreciation. “But I know that’s not regulation.”

“Maybe not for the Secret Service, Sir, but I’m on assignment to S.H.I.E.L.D. right now. S.H.I.E.L.D. has a very cool weapons policy on missions.”

“Which is?”

“Pack ‘em if you got ‘em.” Joss unbuckled the holster that had held the Skorpion and handed it to the President, albeit a little reluctantly. She saw him appreciate the Gerber Yari that fit into a slot in back of the gun.

“Oh, yeah,” the President chuckled. There was a little bit of an awkward moment when he handed her back the weapons so that he could strap on the holster. He took the sidearm back and said, “One more knife and I’ll be good to go.”

The one and only reason Joss handed over her Benchmade Autocrat, against the resistance of every molecule in her body, was that President Burke was the Commander In Chief of the Armed Forces. He nodded and tucked the knife, blade retracted for the moment, into his pants pocket.

Joss touched the transmit button on her comms. “I have AK. Bringing him out now.”

As Steve acknowledged her, she turned toward the door, swung her weapon around to the ready position, and flipped the safety.

“Stay close behind me,” she said as they reached the door. 

“Not today,” Burke growled, pushing past her and beginning to stalk up the hallway. It was a swagger she’d never seen him use before, but she recognized it immediately.

“Oh, no. Sir, please no-“

“I got a score to settle with this prick.”

All Joss could do for the moment was follow him up the corridor, muttering under her breath about damn brainless Navy squids. She did, however, go into full “Oh no you don’t” mode when Burke flattened himself against the wall outside the dooway to the machine room.

He held up a hand and she instantly bit down on her whisper-screamed pleas to let her get him to safety.

“Airman, follow orders,” he barked, which was a feat considering he did it so quietly no one but the woman beside him could have heard it.

  
  
  


Clint simply knelt hunched over Natasha to protect her from being harmed, intentionally or accidentally, during the rigged game of Blind Man’s Buff the team was playing with Arias’s men outside the Armory. The other Avengers quickly cleaned up the rest of them. When they were all subdued and disarmed, they led the men in a line, hand in hand, like school kids on a field trip, as they shuffled blindly to the holding cell.

“Bruce, Catherine, you can start making your way down here,” Steve said into the comms once all their captives were secure. “You’ll need a S.H.I.E.L.D. escort, though. The facility’s not entirely secure yet.”

When Bruce acknowledged that, Steve turned to Tony. “Glad to see your suit didn’t get knocked out by that pulse.”

“Shielded,” Tony shrugged. “I think of everything.”

Those Avengers who were present, as well as some other team members, gathered around Steve outside the conference room door.

“Arias?” Steve asked Bucky and Marcus.

“Disappeared into some kinda trap door or something in the machine room. We’ll go after him,” Bucky answered.

Marcus added, “I gotta get Anita out of that thing.”

“I think Falcon’s way ahead of you on that,” Steve told him. “So we will need somebody in the machine room, but I want you two with me. We need to be waiting for Arias when he reaches wherever that trap door goes. I’m betting it’s an escape route. No point in him staying down here, now that he’s knocked out the power.”

Steve looked over at Tony. “Vision’s out, but Friday’s working through the possibilities, and Coulson’s got agents crawling all over the areas where a tunnel might emerge.”

At that moment, Joss’s harsh whisper came through the comms. “Captain, change of plans.”

“What is it, Agent?”

“AK insists on going after Arias personally. He’s about to enter the machine room.”

“Arias isn’t there,” Steve snapped irritably. “He escaped through some kind of trap door. Stick to the plan. Get AK out of here.”

There’s a short silence before the President’s voice says, “We’re going through that trap door after him.”

“Sir, that is not advisable-“

“Burke out.”

Steve swore vehemently.

“Look at it this way. Now you have someone in the machine room. We can concentrate on securing this place and finding Arias’s exit, if there is one,” Bucky offered, shrugging and grinning a little at what he knew Joss must be feeling right now. He could sympathize. He knew exactly what it was like trying to protect a reckless dumbass who insisted on running toward whatever it was you were trying to protect him from.

  
  
  


Clint laid Natasha gently down on a cot. In fact, it was the same cot they’d put the guards into together when he and Natasha had infiltrated this bunker before, although he was too worried about her at the moment to be amused by that. He pulled a light block from his vest and activated it, casting a surprisingly bright glow from where he set it on a nearby metal chest of drawers. Natasha moaned groggily. He sat down next to her and ran his hand over her hair, pushing a few stray strands away from her face. When she opened her green eyes, Clint thought that they had never looked so lovely as they did right then.

“Hi, beautiful.”

Natasha groaned. “Ohhhhhh... This is the part where you yell at me for being an idiot.”

“No, this is the part where you would yell at me for being an idiot. I’m just gonna take care of you. Don’t want to steal your act.”

“Ugh. Shaming me by being nice. You’re diabolical.”

Clint smiled down at her before kissing her softly. When he lifted his face, he stayed very close, looking into her eyes with genuine concern. His hand went to her hair again, stroking it in a way he knew she found soothing. “I understand the impulse to yell, though. Shit, Tasha, it never gets easier, seeing you take a hit.”

“Scumbag just got a lucky shot. I’ll be OK.”

“He was huge. That had to hurt.”

“Actually, it didn’t,” she laughed weakly. “I was knocked out before I had time to feel it.”

Clint lowered his head to rest his forehead on her chest, heaving a sigh that sounded like it came from somewhere deep in his soul. She put a hand to the back of his head, weaving her fingers into his hair.

  
  
  


Burke and Joss carefully entered the machine room and swept it thoroughly, just in case Arias might have returned. They’d just finished when they heard someone sprinting down the corridor outside, and ducked for cover behind the machine, weapons aimed at the door. When they heard whoever it was stop outside the door, preparing to swing in with guns blazing, Joss called out.

“You in the hall! Declare yourself!”

There was a hissed curse from the hallway and the sound of weapons being holstered. “It’s the Falcon,” Sam shouted, his voice strained. “I’m coming in.”

“Yeah, OK, Sam,” Joss said, as she and the President took their aim off the door and stood.

Sam streaked in, looking frantically around at the machine. “Where is she?”

“I think it’s this,” Burke said, indicating Bucky’s pry bar lying on the floor and an area of bent metal that indicated where he’d begun to work to free Anita.

While Sam immediately knelt to pick up the pry bar and begin wrenching violently at the front panel of the drawer-like recess, the President turned to where Vision still lay, still and silent.

“The trap door must be right around here someplace,” he said, then shocked Sam and Joss by spraying the wall with several rows of bullets from the Skorpion. When a small section of the wall bent in, displaying cracks around a rectangular panel that would otherwise have remained invisible, he said calmly, “Yeah. There it is.”

Both Joss and Sam gasped in surprise and Burke looked back at them with what she guessed was a scowl behind the goggles.

“What?” Burke asked. “We don’t have time to fuck around.”

Joss whimpered as she shook her head.

It took Burke no time to kick in the panel and tear it away from the wall, revealing a crude tunnel cut into the bedrock. The floor was rough, but easy enough to navigate. Burke did wish he was wearing tac boots, like Joss was, instead of his expensive brogans that didn’t give him either the traction or the protection he’d have liked on the rough surface. Still, he started up the fairly steep slope toward a turn several yards ahead.

When they reached it, Joss tried to make Burke let her take the corner first, but wasn’t surprised when he gruffly dismissed the idea. Just as he was about to whip around it, Joss stopped him.

“Wait! Listen!”

When the President stilled, they could hear, faint but unmistakable, the sound of someone ahead in the tunnel, panting with exertion as they stumbled up it. Burke didn’t hesitate. He actually growled as he rushed around the corner and began to run. Once again, all Joss could do was follow.

  
  
  


The S.H.I.E.L.D. team escorting Bruce and Catherine down into Arias’s facility was not the ideal group. Most of the agents on site were helping to clear the bunker or assisting in the search for the exit from Arias’s escape tunnel, so this team of five agents was an ad hoc group that had never worked together before. The only good thing, from Bruce’s perspective, was that Director Coulson had sent Sharon Carter down to the bunker site to led the team. Although Bruce didn’t know Sharon well at all, he recognized competence when he saw it. He appreciated the way she crisply briefed the team and the tone of confident command she used when she did it.

Once she was done, everyone slid on their night vision goggles. The well-armed group surrounded the scientists, readied their weapons, and began to exit the armored vehicle in which they’d driven into the bunker.

Bruce felt kind of stupid. He was surrounded by tough-looking S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in black, squinting down the barrels of intimidating guns as they half-marched their way across the garage cavern and into a corridor. He, on the other hand, was wearing a sage green button-down shirt and Dockers under the bulletproof vest they’d given him, carrying a computer satchel and just trying not to step on the heels of the agent in front of him. He was reduced to being grateful that it was dark, and that Catherine was with him, holding his hand, so the agents would at least know he had a girlfriend and wasn’t a total loser. 

Catherine seemed much more on edge than he was, but then, Bruce got attacked and shot at a lot more than she did. She clutched at his hand and pressed up against his side, her head on a swivel as she tried to look in every direction at once.

For much of the distance down the long corridor to the machine room, nothing happened. Bruce’s mind was split between hoping none of Arias’s goons was left to surprise them, and planning how to deal with the machine once they reached it. Which is why, when the overloud crack of a gunshot sounded and the agent to his left went down, it took a moment for Bruce to understand what was happening.

It was the worst possible location, for the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and the scientists. For whoever was shooting, it was ideal. They were in a long stretch between doorways and intersecting corridors, meaning there was absolutely no cover. Sharon threw Catherine to the floor and laid on top of her, protecting Catherine with her body as she returned fire. Another agent had done the same to Bruce, and Bruce could only hope that Catherine could breathe more easily than he could, because the guy weighed a ton.

The agent who had been on point was hit directly in the face. Catherine screamed as blood sprayed back onto her. When another agent was hit in his gun arm, letting loose a torrent of foul curses, Catherine made a small, terrified noise that somehow brought home to Bruce just how hopeless their situation was. The very real possibility that the woman he loved was about to die hit him much more forcefully than the sonic weapon had.

Olviedo, Arias’s top lieutenant, had known that Arias had what he called the Pulse, which could shut down the power. It’s why he had stashed night vision goggles in several places throughout the facility, including in the machine room. He was proud of his forethought, and also proud that he had timed his attack so well. The invaders blocking the corridor were completely pinned down and helpless, and he had plenty of ammunition to keep firing for as long as it took. He was under no illusion that he could reason with these people or threaten his way past them. He had to kill them, so that’s what he would do.

He hadn’t planned on a Hulk.

  
  
  


When Friday narrowed down the possible locations and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the ground found what had to be the entrance to Arias’s secret escape tunnel, Steve and Bucky were way ahead of the rest of the team getting there. As they ran, Steve cursed himself for sending Scott to help with scouring the bunker for any of Arias’s men who might still be hiding down there. It would have been nice to have him for recon of the tunnel.

The building looked like any other dingy, rundown shop in this industrial area. It was so nondescript, in fact, that S.H.I.E.L.D. had basically found it by accident. Friday’s analysis of the underground tunnels, sewers and utilities, as well as the geologic structure underneath Washington, had pointed to this area as a possibility, but the two-person S.H.I.E.L.D. team had noticed this particular building only because of the unusual cleanliness around its entrance. A quick look inside with a fiberoptic camera had revealed the edge of yet another of those thick metal doors, poorly hidden behind some crates hastily dragged only partway in front of it.

Bucky simply pulled the lock off the door with his metal hand as though it was made of cotton candy and, on entering, strode rapidly to the stack of crates and shoved them out of the way. It took him very little time to ascertain that there were no booby traps, at least on this side of the door. Just to be safe, however, everyone else took cover as Ironman burned through the door.

When nothing exploded, Bucky cracked a relieved grin and pulled his SIG Sauer P220, going into a wary crouch as he moved toward the tunnel entrance.

“Hang on, Buck, let’s think about this. If the President’s chasin’ him from that end, all we gotta do is wait,” Steve suggested, even as he moved up next to Bucky.

“Uh-uh,” Bucky shook his head once. “We don’t know what Arias might do, and Joss is down there with a politician for a partner.”

“He was a SEAL.”

“Was. You comin’, or what?”

Bucky felt a glow of comfortable familiarity as Steve gave him the expected dirty look.

“That rock is gonna block our comms,” Steve said to Tony. “Stay up here, handle anything that needs handling.”

“Yeah. Go. Have fun. Call if you find Moria.”

Steve stared blankly for a few seconds, then simply turned around toward the tunnel entrance again, Tony’s laugh following him. Now was not the time for Tony’s favorite game of “Let’s make references Cap won’t get.”

Steve took the lead, shield out in front, with Bucky right behind, covering them. The two headed down the tunnel, amazingly silent for big men moving so fast.

  
  
  


By the time Sam got the cover dismantled enough to be able to unlatch the mechanism to release Anita, it looked like he’d chewed through it. He pulled as hard as he could, sliding the receptacle out against the resistance of an unpowered motor. He let out a noise that might have been a sob when he saw that she was breathing. She was deathly pale, eyes open and staring, not moving except for irregular, distressed gasps, as though she only remembered to breathe when her body became starved for oxygen. Her face was frozen in horror.

“Baby, baby talk to me,” Sam coaxed as he reached in and lifted her out. She remained silent as he cradled her to him, closing his eyes in gratitude and kissing her forehead. “OK. It’s OK, you’re safe. I got you. It’s all over now. I’m here. I’mma get you out, you just relax. I got you.”

He wished fervently that the wings of the EXO-7 weren’t too wide for the corridors down in this hellhole. He’d have loved to just whisk her up and fly her out as fast as his wings could carry them. He needed to get her out of here. He had no idea what the machine had done to her, but he could see she needed medical help.

He pulled one of his Steyrs, then stood, shifting Anita in his arms so that her head rested on his shoulder. With her legs over his other arm, he could hold the weapon in the hand behind her back just in case anyone was fool enough to get in his way. Sam began to run.

  
  
  


Burke’s shoes made too much noise on the floor of the tunnel for them to move very fast if they hoped to take Arias by surprise. He’d considered taking them off, but had to acknowledge that the stone was too rough and his feet too soft these days to make it workable. That pissed him off in a way he couldn’t have explained to anyone but another SEAL.

So he and Joss crept up the tunnel as fast as they could, ensuring at each turn that they remained out of sight of Arias. Fortunately, Arias wasn’t trying to be quiet. Either he was simply unable - which was a possibility given the wheezing he was doing on the climb – or he thought he was alone in the tunnel.

That changed when the sound of screeching metal came echoing down the stone passageway. Burke and Joss instantly guessed that someone had found the upper end of the tunnel, although they couldn’t be sure, because their comms had ceased to have reception once they entered. They knew, too, that Arias guessed the same thing, because he let out a short, high shriek and the sound of his footsteps stopped.

Burke held up a forearm, fist clenched, as though Joss needed to be told to stop. He started to move slowly forward, but Joss put a hand on his arm and pointed toward his shoes. He shook his head once, but she gave him a look she would later be shocked she’d used on a superior officer, and moved silently around him. When she reached the next turn, she flattened against the wall and risked the briefest peek possible down the next section of tunnel.

No Arias. She signaled to Burke and he moved slowly to her, trying not to let his shoes make a sound. They crept up the next section of tunnel. When they reached the turn, they could both hear clearly that Arias was in the section beyond. He was breathing heavily, but making no other sounds. He seemed to be trying to stay quiet to hear any further sounds from the head of the tunnel. At least they hoped that’s what he was listening to, rather to them.

They didn’t have to wait long. A deep, metallic sound, much closer to a thud than a clang, sounded in the section beyond Burke and Joss, and they saw Captain America’s shield ricochet off the tunnel wall with a few sparks and return the way it had come. From the sound, it didn’t hit Arias, but it had done its job, nonetheless.

Arias began to run back down the tunnel, right toward Burke and Joss.

  
  
  


Natasha would not allow Clint to keep her from sitting up. He finally decided that struggling against his efforts to keep her lying down would be worse for her than sitting up, and helped her to sit up on the cot, leaning against the wall.

“You’re stubborn, you know that?”

“I’m Russian.”

Clint took the opportunity to try to examine her which, of course, she resisted. “I’m fine, Barton, stop it.”

“I need to see how badly hurt you are.”

“No, you don’t. You need to get back out there and do your damn job.”

“They got it covered, they don’t need me.”

“You know, this is exactly the problem. You’re sitting in here with me instead of out there getting it done. We can’t both be out of the fight, just because I get hurt.”

“I agree. And if I thought they needed me, I’d still be there. Not to mention that if they thought they needed me, they’d be calling. Cap ordered me to get you out of there and make sure you’re OK, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“Fine. I’m OK. You’ve completed your mission. Now-“

“Tasha.”

“Seriously, Barton, there’s work to do! I am not-“

“Tasha.”

“Well, I’d for damn sure be leaving your ass right now! I’d trust you to –“

“Tasha.”

“What, damn it?”

Clint touched his comms. “Hey, Cap, you read?”

Tony’s voice answered. “He’s spelunking right now, what do you need?”

“Just checkin’ in. Nat says she’s fine. Where do you need me?”

“We’re covered, and Natasha lies, as you well know. Bunker’s still not secure. Stay with her. Once we get the all clear, get her out.”

“I don’t need-“ Natasha tried.

“And Hawkeye?”

“Yeah, boss.”

“Get her to S.H.I.E.L.D. so she can complain about how she doesn’t need to be seen by a doctor and they can find major injuries that absolutely need to be seen by a doctor. Out.”

“Copy,” Clint said, and conveyed “I told you so” to Natasha in every way but verbally.

To his surprise, tears welled in her eyes.

“Hey, I’m sorry… Nobody’s suggesting you’re weak, or can’t take care of yourself…” He reached for her and she let him pull her into his arms.

“It’s not that.”

“OK.” He turned his face into her hair and kissed her. “Then what? What can I do?”

“I just… I feel… I don’t know, like I’m wrapped in tissue paper or something. It feels too soft! I can’t be like this.” She began to shuffle her legs, trying to move to get up from the cot.

“You’re good, Tasha. Just stop. Relax, hmmmm?”

She stopped struggling, but didn’t move back to her resting position. “It’s nice, though, right? Letting me love you? Letting me take care of you?”

“No! It’s… I don’t…”

“It’s nice. You like it. It feels good.” Clint was murmuring into her hair, rubbing her back as he spoke. “And you’re afraid you’re going to get used to it. Which, if I have anything to say about it, you will. And you will still be just as badass, just as ruthless and dangerous as you’ve always been. You’ll just also know that you don’t have to be like that every minute. You can allow this. You can even like it.”

Natasha sniffled, fighting her emotions as always. “Shit.”

“You know what? I think it’ll make you tougher. Know why? Because you’ll know you don’t have to hold back, save energy for the recovery. When you’ve kicked whoever’s ass needs kicking, you’ll know I’ll be there to take care of you. To be strong for you.”

Natasha didn’t respond, just clung to him and slowly, gradually allowed her head to rest against his shoulder.

“Yeah, Clint whispered. “Tougher. I think a whole lotta bad guys just got a serious pucker, and they don’t know why.”

Natasha chuckled softly. “You’re so full of shit.”

“I’m full of love for you. And shit.”

“Ugh, Barton, you suck at sweet talk.”

“Good at other things. Wanna fuck in an evil villain’s underground lair while the fight’s still going on?”

“Yes.”

“Well, tough. You’re hurt.”

Clint’s shout when she punched him could be heard echoing far down the corridor outside the room.

  
  
  


Once Bruce began to transform, his S.H.I.E.L.D. protector couldn’t get away fast enough. Catherine and Sharon, on the other hand, just backed into the corridor wall, out of his way. The shooter wasted no time targeting the massive figure, and couldn’t miss, given that it filled the space from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, even on all fours.

Olviedo had been shooting from the doorway of a storage room. He was just throwing down his weapon to find a place to hide when the Hulk reached him. He didn’t have time to wonder how the creature could find him in the dark, without goggles, before a massive hand clamped around him and there was a wet crunching noise that cut off the beginnings of a scream.

Sharon and Catherine watched the Hulk’s crouching form, one arm stuck through the doorway from which the shots had come. It was much too small for him to fit through. The gunshots stopped once he reached the door, and then there was no more noise once he stuck his arm in. They could see nothing except a slight movement of the bunched muscles of the Hulk’s upper arm and back suggesting that he was moving his forearm inside the room. 

Then he stopped moving and hesitated a moment before turning back to look at the women sitting together next to the wall. That’s when the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who’d protected Bruce shrieked and went running back up the corridor toward the exit. Sharon and Catherine glanced briefly at him, then back to the Hulk.

Catherine stood, slowly. She didn’t move toward the Hulk as she said, softly and calmly, “Do you know me? I’m Catherine.”

There was a slight grunt as the Hulk regarded her.

“We need to get to the machine room. At the end of this corridor. We could use your help to clear the way.”

Both of the women were surprised at how quickly he made a decision, turned, and began making his way down the corridor

“Holy shit,” Sharon whispered. “I never get used to him. How are you so calm right now?”

“That’s the man I love. He won’t hurt us.”

Sharon tilted her head. “Uh-huh.”

“Right, then. I’m faking it.” She reached down to pick up the satchel with Bruce’s computer in it and, together, they followed the Hulk down the dark corridor with Sharon in the lead, checking every doorway with her pistol before they passed it.


	25. Fightus Interruptus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hulk and Catherine have a moment. President Burke is a BAMF. Sam is there for Anita while she's in medical. Bruce and Catherine talk about the Hulk. Kind of. There's a "liquid debrief" at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, and while Clint and Natasha are busy eyefucking, Bucky's texting Joss.

“Outta my way, Jolly Green, I ain’t playin’. She’s hurt.”

The Hulk actually stopped and moved to make as much room as possible for Sam to get by. Which wasn’t much, given the relative sizes of the Hulk and the corridor. Their night vision goggles and his position didn’t allow Sharon or Catherine to see the Hulk’s facial expression but, watching that interaction, theirs were identical masks of stunned surprise. The scientist in Catherine had a million questions, but as Sam ran by without even a glance toward them, she pushed them to the back of her mind.

At the entrance to the machine room, the Hulk stopped and, on hands and knees, leaned his head down to peer into the room. He stuck his arm in as far as he could, and swept his hand around. With a glance at Catherine, Sharon crossed the corridor to flatten her back to the wall outside the door. She waited until the Hulk’s eyes focused on her.

“I’ll go in. You protect Catherine. If there’s anyone in there, I’ll flush them out to you, OK?”

A blink.

“Do you understand?”

The Hulk grunted and Sharon would swear gave her a look of disdain. “OK. That was patronizing. My bad.”

Sharon pointed toward the door with her FNX-45 Tactical pistol and made to take a step, at which the Hulk backed up just a fraction. He also put an enormous hand out toward Catherine and, without touching her, essentially herded her until she was standing behind him.

She couldn’t help it. In the midst of everything happening, Catherine’s face broke into a huge smile as she realized the Hulk understood perfectly what was happening, and recognized friend from enemy. He was protective and even, in Sam’s case, polite. Of course, that might not always be true for him; she realized that in a frenzy of fear or anger, he would be far less discerning, and therefore more dangerous.

Just like everyone else. She and Bruce had a very long talk ahead of them.

Although the machine room was large, there was nothing in it except for the machine and work stations along the walls, so it took Sharon only a minute to make her sweep. There was no one there except Vision, still inoperative and lying on the floor.

“Catherine? I need your help in here.”

Catherine moved slowly as she stepped around the Hulk. They watched each other carefully. She was fascinated. She wanted nothing more than to stay here, trying to learn about him, trying to answer her countless questions, such as why he could see in the very, very faint light from the machine’s swamp-green glow. She could see that he was interested in her, as well. Catherine couldn’t have explained what made her reach out and touch his hand where it rested on the floor.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, looking into eyes full of intelligence. “Thank you for protecting Bruce. And me. This is the second time you’ve saved my life.”

He made no noise and didn’t move, just continued to study her until she turned away and moved into the machine room.

“If you can help me get Vision over there, maybe the Hulk will carry him up to the garage level,” Sharon suggested when Catherine reached her.

They tried to be careful as they dragged Vision across the floor by his arms – he was far too heavy for either of them to try to lift – until he lay before the Hulk, still just outside the door. The Hulk didn’t hesitate, but scooped Vision up and under one arm, then began a three-point lope back up the hallway, on his knees and balancing on one fist.

“I need Bruce for this,” Catherine said as she turned back to Sharon and indicated the machine.

“Get started and do what you can. I’ll let them know he’s – well, the Hulk is – on his way. And that we need Bruce, when he’s available.”

As Sharon got on the comms, Catherine set the large lantern she’d been carrying onto top of the machine near the control panel. She turned it on so that she and Sharon were able to remove their goggles, then pulled Bruce’s laptop out of the satchel and set it in front of her. Finally, she took the satchel by its bottom and dumped the tools inside onto the floor by her feet.

“We’ll need Stark, too,” she said to Sharon. “Once the area’s secure.”

“No worries there. You’ve got a big, cool machine to play with. Try to keep him away.”

  
  


President Burke and Joss simply waited, pressed against the inner wall of the tunnel, until Arias ran right past them.

“Stop right there!” Burke’s voice was extremely loud as it echoed off the stone walls. 

Arias whipped around, and in the weird green light of their night vision goggles, they could see that he held a shiny handgun with a surprisingly long barrel. Well, he held it for about a second, until Burke fired Joss’s sidearm and the handgun flew from Arias’s grasp. 

Arias froze. Despite the goggles he wore, they could see fear beginning to break through the façade of riteous anger he wore.

“I have _always_ wanted to do that!” Burke cried, grinning hugely.

“Unbelievable,” Joss muttered. “They really _are _total cowboys.”__

____

____

“C’mon, that was cool!”

“Sir…” 

That’s when Arias decided it would be a good idea to rush a former Navy SEAL when he was riding a testosterone high. He did surprise both Joss and the President enough that neither got a shot off, and he managed to knock the Skorpion from Burke’s grasp. He also had a death grip on Burke, so that he couldn’t get his sidearm into position to fire. Joss couldn’t fire without hitting the President so, for a moment, the best she could do was to pick up her Skorpion so that Arias couldn’t somehow get a hold of it, and stand back. She didn’t want to catch a bullet if Burke’s gun went off in the struggle.

Apparently, Burke didn’t, either, because he quickly tossed it behind him, toward Joss. She picked it up and watched, fascinated, as Arias showed himself to be a fairly competent fighter. She didn’t recognize the style; it seemed to be a mix of different disciplines, but he had some pretty good moves. He landed a right cross that bloodied Burke’s nose, and he also delivered a very nice spinning axe kick to Burke’s midsection.

The problem was, Burke suddenly became Rambo. With Joss’s Gerber Yari in his left hand, he was all arms and legs, grunts and short shouts punctuating his strikes and punches, as he pummeled Arias. Arias fought back, even dodged a couple punches and managed to avoid the knife. But it wasn’t long before he could do nothing but hold his fists in front of his face and try to make himself small. The fight didn’t last long – couldn’t, really – but it was enough time for Steve and Bucky to come jogging up behind Joss to catch the last minute or so.

The three of them traded raised-eyebrow grins, while Steve pulled a glow block from his belt and activated it. They pulled off their goggles in the sudden light, and enjoyed front-row seats to watch a wannabe supervillain get his ass handed to him by the President of the United States. Finally, when Arias was beaten to the rough stone floor of the tunnel, Steve cleared his throat and said, “Ahhh, Sir? I think he’s had enough.”

Burke pulled off his goggles. Both Steve and Bucky recognized the expression - a little crazed, a little surprised, and entirely unsatisfied - when Burke looked up from where he had Arias by the front of his robes, pulling him up from the floor, about to deliver a knockout blow. It was time to stop, and he knew it, but damn if it wasn’t frustrating. _Fightus interruptus._ Ellis Burke hadn’t had the opportunity to go off on anyone for a very long time. 

It took him a few seconds of heavy breathing to finally unclasp his fingers and let Arias fall back to the floor. Arias, wisely, didn’t move. Burke stepped away from him and used the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his nose, then re-sheathed Joss’s knife. 

“Don’t suppose any of you brought handcuffs?” He asked, grinning.

Joss actually had a few pairs of disposable cuffs in a pocket of her vest. She reached back, unzipped it, and pulled one out. Burke reached for it. As he did, Arias did an impressive kip-up and, regaining his feet, began to run down the tunnel, back toward the machine room. Joss and Bucky both instinctively raised their weapons, and Steve prepared to throw his shield, but none of them could do anything because the President was between them and Arias. 

Burke actually took a split second to crack an evil smile before taking off after him, launching himself just before Arias reached the first turn in the tunnel, and grabbing his legs in a flying tackle that brought Arias down hard. By the time the three others reached them, Burke had one knee on Arias’s ass and his hands behind his back, but Arias wasn’t even trying to move. He was done. 

Burke insisted on being the one to cuff him, and he absolutely couldn’t wipe the grin off his face as he frog-marched Arias up the tunnel and into the light of day, blindingly bright after the dark of the bunker and the tunnel. Joss was just behind, weapon at the ready in case Arias got any ideas. He was beaten, and Burke would have loved for him to get feisty again, but Joss got paid to be cautious. When they reached the small building housing the entrance to the tunnel, Burke was clearly reluctant to hand Arias over to the S.H.I.E.L.D. team waiting to take him into custody. 

Tony quickly briefed Steve on the status of the team and the location of the members, then set off to see to Vision. “Wanda’s with him on the garage level, and she says if I don’t get there soon, she’ll fill my mind with disturbing images. And not in a good way.”

Steve made a face and mock-shuddered. “Use the tunnel. It’s shorter than going overland.”

“Good idea. If I don’t get Vision back online in time to be part of examining that machine, he’s gonna make Wanda’s images come true.” 

At Steve’s slight salute, Tony clanked toward the door and started down the tunnel.

In the meantime, Bucky obtained more secure shackles and placed them on Arias in preparation for the S.H.I.E.L.D. team escorting him out of the building. When Joss realized that she was just standing there, gaping at Bucky as he worked, she quickly turned to Burke. 

“Mr. President,” she said severely, “You should be aware that I completely disapprove of your recklessness in putting yourself in unnecessary danger. And I want my Yari back.” 

President Burke’s grin faded just a bit as he detached the holster and handed it to her. She let the moment linger as she fastened it back around her waist and snapped the Skorpion into it.

Then she looked up, broke into a radiant smile, and reached out a hand to him. “But I no longer think your code name is over the top.” 

President Burke shook Joss’s hand warmly and smiled back. “It was never my idea to be called Ass Kicker,” he said, though there wasn’t a hint of embarrassment on his face.

Bucky finished shackling Arias and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team prepared to remove him. But when an agent opened the door, a seeming horde outside began fighting for access to the small, dilapidated building. Steve and Bucky immediately rushed to the door to stop them, and Joss used the strap to slide her weapon to her back as she pushed President Burke into a corner, pulling a knife into each hand as she took her stance in front of him.

But it was quickly obvious that the jostling, shouting crowd outside the door weren’t hostiles, just very excited reporters and federal employees wanting their President back. Fully half were Secret Service agents and several were from the White House. The rest were from the press, fighting for position and to be first with a photo of the freshly-rescued President. All were in the way of the medical team that should have been first in line to access him. 

Steve went immediately into Captain America mode, standing to his full height and shouting authoritatively for order. He mostly got it, and what few White House functionaries fancied themselves important enough to begin to object got very quiet when Bucky noisily racked the slide on his SIG and treated them to a Winter Soldier glare.

Joss didn’t let Burke out of the corner until the paramedics and their equipment were inside the building, and the door was closed. Outside it, Captain America and the Winter Soldier stood stern and threatening between it and the herd clamoring to see the President.

  
  


Sam refused to leave Anita. He sat on the tailgate of a pickup in the garage cavern, hugging her to himself and murmuring comforting words to her until an ambulance had made its way down the access tunnel. By that time, although she was still not speaking, she was at least blinking and responsive enough to be clutching a handful of Sam’s shirt and pressing her face into his chest. When the paramedics brought the gurney around, she wouldn’t let Sam lay her down on it. She grasped desperately at him with both hands when he tried, and looked so frightened that he ended up just climbing into the back of the ambulance and sitting on the gurney himself, with her still in his arms. 

At the S.H.I.E.L.D. compound, a team was waiting for Anita in the medical building. There were other casualties of the mission being treated there, which made for a noisy and chaotic atmosphere, but she seemed to be calm as long as Sam was very close. She let him lay her on a gurney once there, and simply gripped his hand and kept her eyes closed or on his as much as possible. The medical team needed scans, which Sam quietly explained to her.

“It won’t be like what happened before. That’s all over. You’re safe now, you’re at S.H.I.E.L.D. These are your people, here to take care of you.”

“Stay,” she whispered fearfully, the first word she’d said since being taken out of that fucking nightmare of a machine, which Sam made a mental note to hack apart with an axe at the first opportunity. Right after he did the same to that asswipe, Arias.

“Agent Herrera, would you like some medicine to help you relax?” A lovely, motherly woman at her bedside asked, smiling unconcernedly down at Anita.

Anita’s frightened eyes turned from the doctor to Sam.

“I’mma be right here. How about you let the doc give you somethin’ nice to help you chill, and I’ll take watch for a while. Yeah?”

Anita looked at him for a long time, then nodded minutely. She held tightly to his hand until whatever the doctor put into her IV took hold, and she drifted into a doze. 

  
  


Steve and Coulson finally gave the all-clear in the bunker forty-five minutes later. Shortly thereafter, the electricity was restored and, with it, the lights throughout the facility. Almost down to the machine room by then, Bruce shut off the large flashlight he was carrying. He was walking slowly. He knew he was. As eager as he was to get to work understanding the machine, he was just as reluctant to have to face Catherine. At least he knew the Hulk hadn’t hurt anyone. Bruce had met up with Clint and Natasha on the garage level where Natasha was being wheeled, arms crossed in obvious disgust, into an ambulance. So he also knew that some members of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team had been shot, but that Sharon and Catherine had not.

Which meant he was going to have to face her, knowing that she’d again seen him transform and been terrified by the appalling thing he’d become. The thing that was part of him. Bruce came around the corner into the machine room, wearing a full, intact set of clothes. It was a paramedic’s uniform, actually, previously worn by the guy currently caring for Natasha. The guy, who was now wearing nothing but a blanket, had said that he insisted, but Bruce doubted that it had been his idea. He was well aware that Clint was a bro, and could be kind of scary when he chose to be.

He did what he could to keep his face carefully neutral as he saw Catherine, looking at the screen of Bruce’s laptop, tilting her head and crinkling her nose like she always did when she was concentrating on solving a problem. He approached her and set his flashlight near the laptop, causing her to look up at him.

Of all the expressions Bruce had prepared himself to see on her face when she saw him, surprised delight wasn’t one of them. She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him as though he was returning from winning a war singlehandedly. 

“Oh, I’m glad to see you!” Catherine cried. “Are you all right?”

“I’m… yeah. I’m good.” _Why did she look so… triumphant?_

“I have so much to tell you,” she said, smiling into his eyes and touching his face before quickly turning back to the task at hand. “But I’m also glad you’re here because this thing is way beyond me. If it was a cloud, Bob’s your uncle. I know how those work. But this...”

“OK. Show me what you’ve found so far.” Bruce was more than happy to turn his attention to the machine, rather than have to discuss the Hulk’s earlier appearance. He was definitely curious about what had made Catherine look at him like that. But he could go a long time without having to discuss the other guy with her. 

Sharon took the opportunity to excuse herself, knowing that the bunker was now perfectly safe, and also that she would be entirely invisible to Bruce and Catherine within the next thirty seconds as they went into geek mode. She smiled to herself as she jogged up the corridor toward the garage level. They were cute together. It made her want to see Steve before she had to head back to headquarters. She knew he wasn’t hurt, but she wanted to see it for herself. Steve would hate that if he knew, tell her that he could take care of himself and that he didn’t want her to worry, which is exactly why she wouldn’t tell him. All he needed to know was that she wanted to see him before she headed back. Which, God knew, was also true. 

  
  


“I just want to be sure you all recognize my contributions,” Scott Lang was saying. “I was assigned to guard captives, which is totally not a good use of my unique skills. No offense.” He gave Steve a small bow of his head. Steve did it back, although with a pained expression on his face that made Bucky snicker.

“Anyway, I guarded the _hell _out of those prisoners. That’s all I’m saying.”__

____

____

Scott’s eyes traveled around the large room, taking in the blank stares of everyone present. The uncomfortable silence lasted until Director Coulson took pity on him. 

“Yes, Mr. Lang,” Coulson said, trying to sound authoritative, or at least trying not to sound amused. “Agent Carter reported to me that the number of Arias’s operatives who were captured is the same number that were delivered into the custody of the federal authorities. Well done.”

“Thank you, Director,” Scott said archly. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”

The federal authorities to whom Arias and his men had been turned over included an alphabet soup of agencies, all of whom were clamoring to be the one to prosecute Arias for his crimes. The competition was fierce, given that one of those crimes was kidnapping the President. The U.S. was currently being quite selfish with Arias, although there were a host of nations demanding his extradition for the various calamities he’d caused in those countries. Director Coulson was more than happy to let Director Markoff take it from here. 

By all accounts, Burke was making the most of his hero moment in the tunnel, as well as his black eye and his various cuts and bruises. He had his sleeves rolled up in every interview and post-rescue picture of him thus far, because he had a particularly grisly abrasion on his left forearm. Many of the news channels – not Fox News, of course – were airing pictures of him in his SEAL days, and interviewing men with whom he’d served. 

The Avengers got their share of airtime, of course, as did S.H.I.E.L.D. Steve and Director Coulson had both done a few on-the-spot interviews, which was all they ever did. Beyond that, Maria Hill dealt with all the requests for statements and sit-down interviews. She was currently swamped. Tony, of course, was always more than happy to give mildly inappropriate and self-aggrandizing sound bites but, fortunately, tonight he was still in the bunker working with Vision, Bruce and Catherine to figure out the machine. 

The Secret Service was very busy deflecting attention from themselves as much as possible, given that Arias’s main operative inside the White House had been Secret Service agent Craig Thomas. Bucky was disgusted both by Thomas’s betrayal, and by the fact that there was no mention, anywhere, of Joss’s role in any of the events.

He had no idea where she was, only that she was in some office building somewhere being debriefed, when he thought she should be doing a victory tour of interviews on the major networks. At the very least, she should be here at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with the rest of the team, celebrating over insane amounts of pizza and what usually ended up being a little too much beer. The team always seemed to find themselves together after missions, surrounded by food and laughter, and Bucky enjoyed it as much as anyone. Tonight, however, he was missing Joss. Which struck him as odd, given that she’d never been to one of these post-mission “Liquid Debriefs,” as Clint referred to them.

Bucky decided to text her, even though he doubted she could respond. 

**Bucky:**  
Still think Anderson Cooper hates you?

When she responded, he felt an unmistakable shiver, and had to try to hide his smile.  


**Joss:**  
He called. We’re good now. 

**Bucky:**  
How’s it going?

 **Joss:**  
Think that job with Lattimore’s still available?

 **Bucky:**  
Least he’d be pretty easy to guard now. That bad?

 **Joss:**  
Markoff’s on a tear. Wants blood for what Thomas did.

 **Bucky:**  
Not yours, you’re the hero. Tell him treat you right or I’ll show him some of his.

 **Joss:**  
Awwww, did you just threaten violence for me?

 **Bucky:**  
I’m romantic. Everybody’s at HQ. Save some pizza for you?

 **Joss:**  
I wish. No idea when I’ll get out of here.

**Bucky:**  
Call me when you get home? 

**Joss:**  
It’ll be late.

 **Bucky:**  
Don’t care.

 **Joss:**  
OK. If I’m not in Leavenworth for ever having met Craig Thomas.

“You’ve got that look,” Steve said with a superior smirk.

Bucky tilted his head. “What look is that?”

“Try that innocent act on someone who hasn’t known you for a hundred years. So where is she?”

“Gettin’ debriefed. And I wouldn’t go makin’ too much fun of me, Romeo. You’re lookin’ awful bowled over, yourself.” Bucky cut his eyes to Sharon, who was talking to some of her fellow agents, but still had hold of Steve’s hand.

“Yeah,” Steve shrugged. “But I admit it. You always gotta act like you’re Mr. Cool.”

“And you’re always tryin’ to make everything more than it is.”

“Really? Because Agent Turell’s ready to propose to Joss. I told him you’d have a problem with that. Should I tell him I was wrong?”

“You should tell him it’s possible to tear out someone’s spine and make it look like an accident.”

Steve couldn’t help flinching, just a tiny bit, before he slapped Bucky on the shoulder and grinned. “That’s what I thought.”

  
  


To no one’s surprise, Natasha had refused to stay in the medical building for longer than was absolutely necessary. She was there, in the building assigned to the Avengers, laughing while Wanda told her how she’d reacted when one of the captives made a pass at her. 

“Mmmm,” Natasha replied with a look of approval. “That’s a handy skill you got. Is he gonna be OK?”

Wanda’s answer was a mere disinterested shrug.

Natasha could see Clint watching her from across the room, where he was standing with Coulson and some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. She didn’t try to untangle the mix of emotions she felt, seeing the happiness on his handsome face. She just kept repeating to herself Clint’s assurance that they were stronger together. She also consciously ignored any feelings that weren’t happiness and attraction. Which she found she could do fairly easily at the moment, because she’d wanted him ever since the pass he’d made at her in the bunker, only to withdraw the offer. He would pay for that. Ultimately, she’d relent, but not before she was damn good and ready. She gave him a look intended to convey that she had plans for him. From his smirk, she was pretty confident he understood.

  
  


Hours later, Catherine finally decided she’d had enough of the machine for one night. They’d dismantled quite a bit of it, including removing the glowing green orbs which had been sent to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters for analysis. Bruce looked as tired as Catherine was. Tony, on the other hand, appeared to need as little sleep as Vision (which was to say, none) and to be as completely focused on his work as he always was. 

“That’s it, boys. I’m out,” Catherine announced with a yawn.

Tony’s shocked look made her laugh. “What are you talking about? You can really just leave this right now?”

“Yes, Tony, I can. And so can you. With absolute confidence that it will be right here when we return.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean…”

“I’m beat, too, Stark,” Bruce said. “It’s two a.m. Time to get some sleep.”

Tony looked to Vision for backup. 

“I must agree, Sir, that it would be advisable for you to retire and resume in the morning. I can continue on with-“

“No!” Tony shouted, cutting Vision off. “If I have to quit, everyone has to quit. And no one starts without me, either.”

Catherine leaned toward Bruce and muttered, “Did he just call bagsy on this _machine_?”

“Americans say dibs, but yeah.”

Catherine raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment further.

In the end, Tony refused to quit so early, so Catherine and Bruce made their way up the corridor toward the garage level and, eventually, the surface. When they were out of earshot of the machine room, Catherine let go of Bruce’s hand and curled her arm around his as they walked. 

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you. You saved my life today.”

Bruce sighed. He knew it was inevitable, but damn he did not want to talk about this. 

“I’m not sure I get the credit for that.”

“Well, I thanked him, too.”

********

“You…”

********

“Bruce, how much do you know about the Hulk? I mean, I know you don’t like to talk about him, at least to me. But I also know you’ve studied him for years.”

********

“I know he’s violent. I know he kills. I know he destroys everything he touches.” 

********

“Has anyone ever told you about their interactions with him?”

********

“Most people who interact with him are dead, Cath.”

********

Catherine wanted to argue, but she knew that now wasn’t the time. As tired as she was, she knew he had to be at least that exhausted. “Well, I interacted with him today, and I’m not dead. I’d like to tell you about it. But we don’t have to do it tonight. I just want you to know that it was good.”

********

Bruce didn’t say anything, but he squeezed her arm a little. Catherine bumped him with her hip as they walked. 

********

“And I love you,” she smiled.

********

Bruce shook his head and sighed again, but a ghost of a smile did play on his lips at that. He didn’t know how she could possibly mean that, but he knew how good it felt to hear. 

********

When they reached their room at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Catherine put her arms around Bruce and kissed him lightly. “I know it’s late, but I feel gross. I’m going to take a quick shower.” She waited a beat. “Interested?”

********

Bruce’s little-boy grin gave Catherine a flurry of butterflies in her stomach. She hadn’t been sure what kind of reception that suggestion would receive, but he seemed somehow relieved that she’d asked. And the look in his eye as he pulled her in for another, more serious kiss gave her chills. The chills felt delightful in combination with the heat she was feeling.

********

By the time they got out of the shower, they’d kissed and caressed each other until Catherine practically ran from the bathroom and jumped into bed. She scooted toward the middle and reached for Bruce, who smiled, but took his time laying down next to her. He’d been taking things slowly, kissing her deeply and thoroughly and using long, slow strokes to touch her. He lay on his side and propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at her with those dark, soulful eyes. 

********

“I love you, Catherine,” he practically whispered, touching her face with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes. 

********

“I love you, too. I’m so glad we’re here together.”

********

It was what he needed to hear. Bruce felt exposed, flayed open and entirely vulnerable to her at this moment. He began to slide his hand from her cheek down her neck, barely touching her and leaving a trail of fiery goosebumps in his wake. He watched her nipples harden as she arched up toward him in anticipation. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured.

********

His fingertips teased her breast, barely touching her while she whimpered a little, trying to be patient. Bruce could see her moving her hips, needing his touch. When he was in this mood, he could drag things out for an excruciatingly long time. He wanted to. He wanted her pleasure to last, feeling like it was all he had to give her, this woman who held him completely in her power. She tried to touch his cock, but this was about her. He’d purposely positioned himself so that he was out of reach. 

********

After a while, Catherine’s breaths were coming in soft gasps and she reached for his hand, no longer able to stop herself from pushing it downward. He softly turned his hand over and took hers, bringing it to his lips and kissing her fingers. 

********

“Please…” She moaned breathily.

********

“Please what?” He asked with the sweetest, most wicked grin possible. Watching her respond to his touch was rapidly pushing him to the point where he could no longer concentrate solely on her need.

********

“Fuck me. I want to come with you. Please…”

********

“Oh, you will. But doesn’t this feel good?”

********

“Yes, but…”

********

He let her beg him with her eyes for a while longer, holding her hand to his lips and raking her, naked and writhing, with hooded eyes full of sin. 

********

Finally, he relented, giving her fingers a final kiss and laying her hand softly next to her on the bed, with the clear implication that she was to keep it there. He touched his fingers to her nipple, then softly began to slide his hand, open palm tenderly smoothing over her skin, down her body. She whined and lifted her hips, unconsciously separating her thighs for him. 

********

When his hand reached her mound, he turned it so that his fingers touched her lower lips, separating them delicately and watching her face as she reacted. Catherine closed her eyes, her head back as she focused entirely on his fingers. Bruce made her wait an eternity while he touched her softly, caressing her lips and moving a fingertip delicately around the rim of her passage. But when he saw a slight frown of desperation cross her brow, he brought his middle and index fingers together and slid them, slowly but firmly, into her. 

********

“Yes! Fuck, yes...” she moaned. 

********

He watched himself fuck her with his fingers, watched her squirm and move with him, rock-hard himself and feeling like he could come with only the slightest touch. His intention to focus only on her crumbled with the almost unbearably sexy sight of her, writhing and begging, undone with desire. Unable to ignore his own increasingly pressing need, he rolled toward her, pressing his cock against her hip and rutting up against her. He pulled his fingers free, which got a frustrated whine, but when she looked up at him, he had his pinkie finger in his mouth and was licking it obscenely. Her whimper told him she knew what that meant. 

********

When he reached down to touch her again, he slid his fingers into her slick passage, and thrust into her a few times before touching the tip of his pinkie to her hole. She was more than ready, and he wasn’t sure whether he pushed into her as much as she pushed onto his finger. Either way, watching her had his cock leaking steadily now, creating a slick mess on her hip that felt like fucking heaven as he rubbed against it. He removed his index finger from inside her and, continuing with the same rhythm of thrusts, touched it to her clit. She ground shamelessly against his touch and, almost immediately, she was shouting his name and being shaken with powerful spasms as she erupted into her violent climax. He watched as she came, rutting against her until he, too, went over the edge, coming against her hip with a hissed, “Oh, fuck!” followed by formless groans that went on for a long time. 

********

Bruce used a towel he’d brought with him from the bathroom to clean them up. By the time he tossed it to the floor and snuggled up to her, Catherine was already asleep.

********


	26. If Guns & Ammo Had A Centerfold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky helps Joss unwind after her long debrief. The team discovers how to find the rest of the machines and Steve assigns teams to take them out. Clint and Natasha go on their mission and don't get enough of a fight from the remaining guards, so they find another way to burn off all that excess energy. Bruce and Catherine partner on their mission to destroy the machines they're assigned, and then stay behind for a mini vacation. The Hulk smashes, and not in a good way.

It was almost three a.m. when Joss finally stumbled into her apartment, exhausted and more than ready to fall into bed. She wasn’t ready to open the door to find the lights on. Which is why, when Bucky woke up on her couch, it was to her scowling face over the barrel of her Wilson Combat EDC X9.

Once she recognized him, she immediately took her sights off of him and engaged the safety, but the scowl remained. “You scared me.”

“Sorry. That’s why I left the lights on, thought it would let you know I was here without freaking you out.”

“I see. Also, you could have let me know to expect you. That’s a thing people do. Prevents a lot of unfortunate shootings.”

Bucky grinned. “I figured you for a girl who’d make sure of her target first.”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Stop being cute,” Joss said, holstering her sidearm and then beginning to remove her weapons belts entirely. “I could’ve shot you, and I just got back into Anderson Cooper’s good graces. What do you think the world would do to me if I shot Bucky Barnes? So don’t smile at me like that, because then I’m going to want to kiss you, and I’m trying to be mad at you right now.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, getting up. “You think I’m cute?”

Joss evaded him on her way into her bedroom closet, where her gun safe was. “Not the point I was making, Bucky.”

He was standing just behind her as she tapped in the combination. “Well, that’s what _I_ heard.” 

Once she’d stowed her weapons, nowhere nearly as carefully as she normally did, she closed the heavy door and turned to him, a weary half-smile on her face. “I’m too tired to resist you.”

Bucky pulled her into a hug, which she returned with a long sigh. “Mmmmmmm,” she half-moaned. “You feel good. I needed a hug after a day like today.”

“That’s why I’m here. I figured you’d be tired, thought I’d see if you needed anything to eat, or wanted to vent, or anything.”

She buried her face in his chest, groaning, “Ooooooohhh, no. I’m doomed.”

“Why are you doomed?” Bucky chuckled, low and sexy, stroking Joss’s hair while he held her.

Joss hesitated before turning her head to rest it against his shoulder. “Because you’re breathtakingly handsome; you’re like if Guns & Ammo had a centerfold. And now I know you’re thoughtful, too.”

“Did you just call me a Guns & Ammo centerfold?” Bucky laughed.

“Mmmmm Hmmmmm.”

“Why do I like that so much?”

“Because you get what I mean, and you understand how much I like it.”

“Good answer,” he said, kissing her hair. “But I’m not sure it’s thoughtful of me to be here. I just really wanted to see you, and taking care of you after a long day seemed like a good excuse. I don’t want to ruin your illusions, but it’s actually incredibly selfish.”

Joss looked up at Bucky. “Really? You wanted to see me?”

“Feeling a little doomed myself, Joss.”

They smiled at each other before he leaned in to brush his lips across hers. He meant it to be a simple kiss, light and comforting. But they were both surprised by their reactions to what they’d just said to one another. As it sunk in, their kiss deepened, quickly becoming breathless as they adjusted the way they held one another from a hug between friends to the embrace of lovers. Bucky didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation of Joss’s open lips, while Joss melted her body into his when he tightened his arm across her lower back.

“This isn’t why I came over,” Bucky murmured when they were forced by their basic need for oxygen to separate their mouths momentarily.

“You came over to comfort me, right? This is very comforting.”

He liked the smile and hint of promise in her voice. He smiled, too. When she lifted her lips back to his, he decided not to worry that she might think he was trying to take advantage of her. The way she was kissing him – if anything, pushing things further – left no room for that concern. He let any hesitation go and gave himself over to full concentration on her lips, and the way she gnawed sweetly at his, the tiny, breathy sounds she was making, and the way her body felt against his. There was nothing about this that felt too fast, or inappropriate. In fact, it felt right in a way that was going to get very hard to resist in a minute.

Bucky lifted his mouth from Joss’s and hugged her again. “You should, um… change into pajamas and let me make you a snack so you can go to sleep. We have a debrief in the morning.”

Joss groaned, but loosened her arms and stepped back. “OK.”

He was happy to see that she looked as dazed as he felt.

She took a very fast shower while he made her a grilled-cheese sandwich with the ingredients he’d scoped out in her kitchen earlier. The timing was perfect; he was just sliding her sandwich onto a plate when she padded into the kitchen wearing a T-shirt and soft, grey shorts. It was her house, and she was going straight to bed, so fuck if she was going to wear a bra, but she did pull on an Air Force sweatshirt in some sort of nod to propriety. 

“I heard you laughing,” he said, by way of greeting. 

She smiled happily at seeing what he’d made for her, and sat down at the small, round wooden table that separated her kitchen from the living area. “It occurred to me to wonder how you got in here, but then I realized what a dumb question that was.”

“I’m getting you new locks,” Bucky said, a slight frown of disapproval crossing his face. “The ones you have now wouldn’t present a challenge to anyone, and Stark makes ones that are even hard for me to get through.”

“Thanks for worrying about me. I feel pretty safe right this minute, though,” she looked at him in a way that renewed the arousal he’d had to work to get back under control. 

“Not sure you should,” he responded, and the desire in his eyes made it very clear what he meant. “You might’ve let the big bad wolf in already.”

Bucky enjoyed watching her wrestle with how to respond: the way their agreement to go slow dictated, or the way she wanted to. He actually laughed when she said, “This is the best grilled-cheese sandwich ever.”

Going with it, even though he’d had his hopes up for a moment, Bucky responded, “It’s my specialty. My mom used to say there’s nothing so wrong a grilled cheese can’t make it better.”

“Wise woman.”

“Great cook, too. “

They chatted casually while Joss ate, humming appreciatively as she finished. “You have my permission to break into my house and make me a midnight snack any time you want.”

There was nothing Bucky wanted more right that moment than to make Joss _his_ midnight snack. But he chose to respond to that the way she’d actually meant it. “I’ll keep that in mind. Right now, it’s time for you to get some sleep.”

She smiled when he accompanied her into her bedroom and watched while she brushed her teeth, then actually tucked her into bed. Everything in her wanted him to sleep next to her, but she forced herself to behave. He helped by kissing her sweetly on the forehead rather than the way he really wanted to. After the flash of her abdomen when she took off her sweatshirt before getting under the covers, and the tantalizing shape of her breasts under her T-shirt, Bucky seriously doubted that he had the strength to resist her if she started kissing him again the way she had earlier.

“Sweet dreams. I’ll see you at the debrief.”

“Good night. And thank you again.”

“Anytime. Now get comfortable. I’m going to sit with you until you fall asleep.”

No one had ever done that for Joss before. She wasn’t sure quite how to feel about it, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to fall asleep. Surprisingly, though, as soon as she was on her side with her eyes closed, feeling Bucky stroking her hair and listening to his soft breathing, she found that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so safe and cared for. 

As exhausted as she was, and now showered, fed, and extremely comfortable, Joss fell asleep quickly. She hoped to have raunchy dreams about Bucky, but when she awoke in the morning, she was disappointed to find that she couldn’t remember any.

The debrief went more quickly than anyone had expected. There simply wasn’t much to say that wasn’t already known, and not much second-guessing to be done. Tony, not having slept, looked haggard and disheveled, but that wasn’t new to anyone who had known him for any length of time. Sam and Anita were still in the medical building, attending remotely. They looked very sweet, cuddled together in her hospital bed, but her eyes were haunted and she said almost nothing. More than once, Sam had stopped Director Coulson from pressing her for information.

“If she’s got something to say, Director, I’m sure she’ll say it,” Sam said, tone respectful but nonetheless with a note of subtle warning in it. 

Coulson gracefully backed off. He fully understood Sam’s meaning. Besides which, Phil Coulson had been through a few of his own, similar experiences and was entirely sympathetic to Anita’s situation. He had no wish to traumatize her further; he just wanted to make sure she had the opportunity to speak if she had something to say. The Avengers, and S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives, could be an overbearing lot.

When the post-mortem on the operation was complete, Vision was asked to present his information. He was, of course, entirely unaffected by having worked through the night.

As it turned out, the scientists had been all but finished with the main analysis of how the machines worked, and how they could be safely dismantled, by the time Bruce and Catherine had called it a night. What had kept Vision and Tony working was a discovery made by S.H.I.E.L.D. as they’d analyzed the glowing green orb removed from the machine. S.H.I.E.L.D. had discovered that the orbs themselves had an energy signature that could be detected if one knew where to look. Tony and Vision had spent the night creating an algorithm that could do just that. Even as the meeting was occurring, S.H.I.E.L.D. had programmed the algorithm into the systems in its satellites (and some others, which S.H.I.E.L.D. was covertly “borrowing” for the purpose). Those satellites were now feeding information to S.H.I.E.L.D. which its systems were, at this moment, utilizing to create a map of all the machines in the world. 

Once the debrief was complete, the team broke up for a late lunch, which lasted until Director Coulson notified them that the map was complete. The Avengers and select senior S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel then reconvened in the building assigned to the Avengers. They spent the rest of the day assigning teams to take out the various machines. 

Since Arias was now known by all to be in custody, his plans exposed and his organization in ruins, not much resistance was expected. By all accounts, all of the most senior members of Arias’s empire had been in the bunker to take part in the attack on Washington, which left only low-level workers minding the machines. Since nearly all of the Arias employees currently in custody had shown themselves eager to turn on him in order to save themselves, it was an even bet whether anyone would be left guarding the machines when the Avengers arrived to destroy them.

S.H.I.E.L.D. used Tony and Vision’s algorithm to locate thirty-five machines worldwide. Not surprisingly, Natasha and Clint volunteered to team up to destroy the three machines in Russia and Belarus. The two in China and one in Malaysia were assigned to a five-person S.H.I.E.L.D. team who were already embedded in that part of the world. India, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan would be Bruce and Catherine’s problem, while Vision and Wanda would handle the machines in Saudi Arabia, Zambia, and Nigeria. There were seven machines across Europe, which were the responsibility of Steve, Sharon, and a team of European S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. When Steve teamed up Bucky and Joss, and assigned them to the machines in the very desirable locations of Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand, Bucky recognized it for the matchmaking attempt it was. He said nothing and certainly didn’t object.

Initially, there was a question whether Steve could, or would, assign Anita to any team. Steve was a hopeless and kind of adorably obvious romantic, and he did want to assign Anita and Sam to work together. But her condition would be the determining factor. Director Coulson, hearing that, decided to take a chance. He told Anita that. Coulson thought that, had it been him, the opportunity would have given him an incentive to heal, and something to look forward to, both crucial in recovering from something like what Anita had endured.

He was right. 

Anita spent as much time as she was allowed working with a post-trauma therapist, processing the helplessness and terror she’d felt while trapped within the machine. More difficult was coming to terms with the horror of the drug-assisted programming she’d endured. She couldn’t talk about it with Sam. She trusted him completely, but couldn’t stand the idea of him knowing the terrible violation of her body and mind she’d experienced. She knew that the shame she felt was natural but misplaced, and thought she might, someday, be able to share what had happened with him. But not today. For today, she worked within the privacy of her therapy sessions. Her therapists agreed that it would be healing for her to participate in the destruction of the remaining machines. So, the combination of her hard work and innate strength, together with Sam’s complete support (and, she was honest, the promise of some sweet payback), helped Anita quickly reach a point where she was ready to partner with Sam to destroy the three machines in Central and South America. 

Tony led a team that destroyed the machines in North America, and S.H.I.E.L.D. took care of the rest.

Clint’s Russian sucked, and he knew it. In fact, his Russian was so rudimentary that he had been on more than one mission where his cover was that he didn’t speak Russian at all. His Belarussian was even worse. Fortunately, they knew to within ten yards where the machines were, so for this trip, he and Natasha didn’t need a cover at all. They simply slipped into Belarus, blew their way into the cavern in which the machine was located, and destroyed it without a word to anyone but each other. There had been a small, easily overpowered crew guarding it, but they were so demoralized already by the news that Arias had been captured that they were already half-defeated when Clint and Natasha arrived.

The two had been in full mission mode when they’d gone in, though, so such an easy achievement of their objective left them feeling keyed up and unsatisfied. Because they had no intention of remaining in Belarus for longer than it took to complete the mission, they had nowhere to go. Which is why they ended up expending all their pent-up energy having rough, sweaty sex in their quinjet as it lay buried under camouflage netting in an airfield on a destroyed Hydra base.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t romantic, like Clint would have liked, and it was a little more light-filled and exposed than Natasha preferred. But it was exciting, with a hint of danger, and in a situation that they recognized as being fitting for them. They weren’t house-with-a-white-picket-fence people. Sure, they liked a big, comfortable bed they could move around on, and where they could sleep tangled together afterward. But it suited Natasha to be on her knees on the textured steel floor of the quinjet, while Clint stood holding the overhead rails designed as an in-flight handhold. Just as it suited Clint to pound into her as he bent her over one of the workstations in the cabin. And when that turned out not to be quite enough for them, they both enjoyed their slow, deep fuck with Natasha straddling Clint in the pilot’s seat.

It was Natasha who said “I love you” first this time. Clint didn’t point that out. Instead, he simply assured her that he loved her, too, and made sure that she had at least two orgasms to his every one. 

In Russia, the machine they hit had simply been abandoned. They destroyed it and, again spoiling for a fight that hadn’t materialized, they flew straight across the country to destroy the second. When it, too, turned out to be abandoned, they destroyed it and then Clint stood, watching Natasha until she turned to see why he was so quiet. He pushed her back up against the machine, running his hands over her body in her black leather until she was gasping for breath and rutting against him. Then he slowly, slowly unzipped her suit and bared her breasts. 

She looked gorgeous, leaned up against a dead, useless hunk of hardware in an underground bunker lit only by a light cube, flushed, with her erect nipples rising and falling as she panted with arousal. When he began to use his mouth to tease her, she let her head fall back against the black cowling of the machine and simply concentrated on the feeling of his lips and tongue. He never teased long enough to be frustrating; he had an innate sense of when she reached the peak of her arousal, and then would entirely satisfy her need to feel him sucking at her nipples, laving them with his tongue until they began to be too sensitive to continue. 

He was surprised when she let him completely remove her clothing, so that she was entirely naked as she freed his cock and positioned him so that he could thrust roughly into her. He wasn’t gentle; she didn’t want him to be. The sound of her body being slammed against the side of the machine as he pounded his dick into her echoed in the abandoned space along with their rhythmic cries. She nearly screamed as she came. But he wanted to make this last. This moment, this setting, was so representative of all the things he found exotic and fascinating about her that he wanted to stay here, fucking her and listening to her uncontrollable cries of pleasure for as long as possible. The problem was, he found the whole idea so arousing that it was almost impossible to hold back. When he was finally unable to contain his climax any longer, he came with an explosive shout of her name that could be heard throughout the empty facility.

The facility Bruce and Catherine were assigned in India wasn’t guarded. The building that housed it wasn’t even locked. Arias’s men had simply admitted defeat and left it to its fate. There were only minor differences between the machines, so it took Bruce and Catherine no time to destroy it and remove the orb within it to take back to S.H.I.E.L.D. 

Afterward, Bruce took the time to show Catherine some of the places he’d lived and worked when he’d been in India, trying to do good and lay low at the same time. They didn’t talk directly about the Hulk. There didn’t seem any reason to. They were in the midst of a mission, and both sensed that they had time. For Catherine, they had the rest of their lives. She’d known for a long time that she would never love anyone but Bruce, and she now knew that the Hulk presented far less danger to her than he imagined. 

Bruce could feel that something fundamental had changed when she’d seen him transform in D.C. She hadn’t pushed him to talk about whatever had happened between her and the Hulk, and he hadn’t asked. In part, because he wanted to keep things exactly as they were now. Catherine was here and they were together. As long as he didn’t think about the future, he had everything he wanted. It was as entirely illusory as the feeling of safety created by not looking down from a height, and he knew it. The fact that it was temporary did not somehow mean she was safer from him. But he ignored that. 

The machine in Afghanistan was fairly brilliantly placed in a mountain cave on the edge of the city of Bamiyan. That city was safe enough for foreigners to visit, if they were careful, and close enough to allow Arias to create phenomena that would affect the capital, Kabul. This machine was not abandoned. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s intelligence had told them it wouldn’t be. The machine was known locally to exist, and the locals thought that having such a thing could be very useful. 

Given the instability of the country as a whole, the Avengers had decided that going in with force was courting disaster. Instead, they’d decided that social engineering was far superior because it would allow them to destroy the machine without ever letting Arias’s goons know they’d been there. Done correctly, the plan would leave them thinking that they, themselves, had done it. Steve and Coulson had specifically chosen Bruce and Catherine for this mission because, of everyone on the team, they seemed the least like they could be any sort of threat (as long as Bruce wasn’t nine feet tall, green, and pissed off). 

The plan had worked perfectly. In fact, not only had the machine been destroyed, it had actually been blown up. That part really had been the fault of Arias’s men, although Bruce had definitely helped them come up with the really bad idea that had made it happen. And Catherine had turned out to be quite a talented burglar, stealing the orb from the machine right from under the owners’ noses in the commotion.

From there, Bruce and Catherine had moved on to Nur-Sultan, the ultra-modern capital of Kazakhstan. The placement of the machine there was very similar to that in Washington, D.C. in that it was inside a bunker-like facility underneath a city. Since Nur-Sultan is such a new and rapidly-growing city, it had been easy for Arias to build the facility without anyone noticing anything unusual going on with the construction project that was its cover. 

It was also not difficult for Bruce and Catherine to access it, given that most of the guards had deserted it. All they’d had to do was basically be themselves with different names and backstories. The few Arias cronies who’d remained behind in Nur-Sultan wanted very much to keep control of the machine for their own ends. As a result, they’d been thrilled to meet some disaffected expatriate scientists who wanted in on the ground floor of something so exciting. With their obvious knowledge in relevant fields, it hadn’t been hard for them to get an invitation to see the machine and, from there, it was a simple matter of activating Stark technology and getting out of the way. The machine whirred and hummed, glowed grotesquely and emitted a noxious smell never associated with it before. As the noises increased in pitch and volume, Catherine began to predict imminent explosion, and Bruce just went along with her.

The crew had eventually fled, so frightened they didn’t even notice Bruce and Catherine weren’t with them. The scientists had simply locked the doors behind them and taken their time destroying the machine and removing the orb.

Bruce hadn’t been in Kazakhstan for years. The last time he’d been there, many of the most recognizable buildings in the capital were still under construction, and the city itself had still been called Astana. Catherine had never been there. The two decided that, since their mission was complete (which Catherine got a childish thrill out of saying), they would spend a few additional days there.

The days were getting colder which, in a city where negative forty degrees Farenheit isn’t unusual, can be very cold. This particular day was snowy and blustery, so Bruce and Catherine were being luxuriously lazy, enjoying breakfast in bed. They’d both been very hungry, which wasn’t surprising given the number of times they’d made love the night before. They were now at the stage of feeding each other random bits of fresh fruit just because it was there, the sappy silliness of it particularly appealing after the seriousness of the past few weeks. Breakfast more or less over, Bruce was propped against the thickly-padded headboard with Catherine lying against his chest.

“I’ve never understood how the two of you can be such good mates. He’s like, the anti-Bruce. You’re all calming tea and meditation, and he’s all coffee and chaos.”

“Maybe that’s why it works.”

“I could never work with Tony Stark. He’d drive me crazy.”

“I actually think I’m the one who drives him crazy. He wants me to get all wired about stuff, and then he gets frustrated when I don’t.”

“I can imagine that, now that you say it,” Catherine laughed.

“He’s brilliant, you know.”

“That I know. Hard to miss. And, of course, if you do, he’ll make sure to point it out.”

Catherine could feel Bruce’s chuckle in his chest as he leaned down to kiss her hair. “Yeah, he’s got his quirks. But there’s a lot more to him than he wants most people to think. Good things. Honorable things.”

She turned her head just enough to kiss his chest. After a moment of fond silence, she said, “Bruce?”

“Hmmmmm?”

“Can we talk about what happened in D.C.?”

“You mean…?”

“When I met the Hulk.”

Bruce stalled by reaching over and picking a piece of melon from the almost-empty plate and holding it in front of her lips. When she took it in her mouth, he picked up another for himself. “I guess we’re going to have to talk about a lot of things, at some point.”

She sat up to face him, pulling the sheet with her so that she remained covered. “I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too,” he said, looking at her with utter adoration as he stroked her cheek.

Catherine waited for the “but.” When, surprisingly, it didn’t come, she told him in as much detail as possible how she and Sharon had interacted with the Hulk outside the machine room in Arias’s bunker.

“He’s not an animal, Bruce. He’s so much more intelligent and aware than I understood. He recognized me. He knew who I was. Sam and Sharon, too.”

“I guess that’s not such a surprise. The team says he mostly recognizes them.”

“Which is why he’s never hurt them.”

“I… guess you could say that.”

“Which is why he’ll never hurt me.”

He looked at her for a moment, mouth open as though a hundred objections were fighting to escape at the same time. “He’s completely unpredictable and uncontrollable.”

Catherine didn’t respond. She simply waited, sitting cross-legged before him on the bed, one of his hands in one of hers. 

“He’s fueled by rage, Catherine. His entire being is, is… based on rage. He’s just blind anger, striking out at everything in front of him.”

“Did you listen to a word I just told you? He’s not blind rage. His presence is a defense mechanism, Bruce, it’s protection. For you, for those you love… I mean, he protected the planet when the Chitauri came. And me. I know you know where I live. I know he protected my building because it was mine.”

“Yes, but he’s still dangerous.”

“Yes, he’s dangerous. He’s dangerous in the same way Captain America is dangerous. The way the Black Widow is. He’s dangerous to people who try to hurt others. But not to everyone. Not to your teammates. Not to me.”

“I can’t take –“

“That chance,” she finished with him. “I know. What I’m trying to tell you is that it isn’t what you think. The danger, what there is of it, is so much less than you imagine.”

“Catherine…” Bruce sighed, leaning his head back on the headboard. 

“I want to ask you something. There’s a reason I mentioned Tony Stark.”

Bruce didn’t move his head, only his eyes, so that he was looking at her through narrowed eyes. It was a little silly, but not entirely a joke.

“Bruce, I… These past weeks, with you… I don’t want to go back to being strangers. I want to be with you. We’ve wasted so much time, I don’t want to waste any more.”

“…And? What are you asking me?”

“I’m asking you whether you want that, too. Because if you do, then everything else is details.”

Bruce raised his head and noted the sheen of emotion in Catherine’s emerald-green eyes as he regarded her. “Yes,” he said simply.

“Yes?”

“Yes. Except, maybe I should ask you what Tony Stark has to do with it first.”

“Don’t make jokes,” she said, although she was laughing. “He could help us figure out how to test things out. Because watching you – him, I have so many questions. I want to know so much about him! Not to get rid of him. Not to control him. To know who he is.”

“Cathy, he could kill you.”

“Yes, but-“

“What do you suppose that would do to me?”

Catherine blinked and moved her mouth as if to speak, but could think of nothing to say to that.

“Did you really think this was all altruism? It’s not. It’s self-preservation, too, Catherine.”

Catherine’s voice was small as she asked, “Is that a ‘no’?”

“It’s a ‘be aware what you’re asking’. It was bad enough knowing how much I hurt you by leaving. If I seriously injured you? God forbid, killed you? I’d be even more of a psychological disaster than I am now. That one, I wouldn’t make it back from.”

She looked down at their clasped hands and, for a moment, played absently with his fingertips. 

“I hadn’t realized that,” she said softly.

“I didn’t think so.”

Catherine crawled over Bruce’s thigh nearest her, pushing his legs apart so that she could lay between them with her head on his chest, arms around him. 

“That’s different,” she said softly.

To her utter surprise, Bruce laughed. Not a belly laugh, or an amused chuckle, but a wry, cynical exhalation. “And the penny drops.”

She looked up into his face, which required a fairly uncomfortable cat stretch, but she needed to see his expression. He wasn’t smiling. He looked the way he had that terrible night in London. For a moment, their eyes met, volumes of communication happening much faster than words could have accomplished it. She lay back down then, and sighed. He simply petted her hair, stroked her back as far as he could reach, and tried to bite his tongue hard enough to distract him from the sound of his heart breaking.

He was disappointed when she sat back up, crawled back over his leg, and rested next to him on the headboard. She was still touching him all along their sides, and she slid her arm under his so that she could intertwine her fingers with his again, their hands resting on top of the sheet over his thigh. Even so close to her, still naked in bed holding hands, he already felt cold and alone. 

But he couldn’t blame her. He had the same problem. He could take the risk for himself, but not for her. He supposed that the fact she loved him that much, too, would have to comfort him in the long, lonely years to come.


	27. By God, We Saw Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A whole chapter of SteveSharon because Steve and Sharon. They destroy some machines and have a lot of sex. You're welcome.

Steve was rigid with impatience as he waited for all the teams to report in. He called Director Coulson five times from the plane to ask whether they had checked in with him. Finally, Sharon got a message on her S.H.I.E.L.D. phone.

**Director**  
He must be stopped. Clearance given to incapacitate him by any means necessary. 

**Agt. 13**  
Acknowledged. Request you instruct other onsite agents to go blind and deaf for a bit.

**Director**  
DONE

Sharon grinned to herself as the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the plane got messages from the Director and frowned at their phones in confusion. Steve frowned a bit, too, as she took his hand and led him aft. 

The jet they were on belonged to S.H.I.E.L.D., so it wasn’t luxurious like a Stark jet. Sharon didn’t need it to be. The plane was large, and was often used to ferry agents from one hot spot to another, which meant it had a bunkroom. It was tiny and utilitarian, but Sharon would make it work.

She pushed Steve inside, noting that each of the other agents on the plane were deeply engaged in absolutely not paying attention. Sharon closed the door behind her and engaged the lock, then rested her back against the door and pulled Steve against her.

He chuckled a little, kissing her back, but tried to hold himself slightly away from her. “Why are you trying to undress me right now?”

“Orders,” she said, pulling his belt from the buckle and tugging to unhook it.

“That’s cute, but I’m running several-“

Sharon stopped, looking up into his deep blue eyes with a smile. “Actually, _Director Coulson_ is running several missions. What _you’re_ doing is driving him crazy. My orders are to stop you by any means necessary. If you’d rather I knock you out…”

Steve backed a step or two away and sat down on the nearest of the four bunks along the walls of the little room. Running his hands through his hair, he heaved a sigh of frustration. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

Sharon smiled and very pointedly knelt in front of him, smiling at him with her brown eyes full of love, and not a little bit of want. “You’re involved. You want to find a way to help if you can. It’s why you’re spectacular at your job.”

“And why I’m a worrywart driving everybody nuts.”

“Well,” Sharon said, resuming unhooking his belt. “Lucky for you, I’m here to help.”

“There’s a planeload of agents out there…”

“All of whom are under orders to pay no attention to us.”

As she unbuttoned his khakis, Steve covered his face with his hands. “Oh, no… Sharon, I can’t possibly have sex with all those people right there, knowing what we’re doing.”

“Hmmm,” Sharon said, and lowered his zipper. “I can.”

She pushed at his chest so he would lay back, which he did, but he was still complaining. “This is… This is really not appropriate. I don’t think I can-“

With one pull, she had his pants and boxer briefs down to his knees, which surprised him enough that he stopped talking. She pulled off his shoes and socks in another move, and then slid his pants the rest of the way off. Then she reached for his arm, and sat him up again, beginning to unbutton his shirt. He put his hands on hers, but she noticed he didn’t actually try to stop her from what she was doing. 

“Sharon…”

“I’ll tell you what. Even if all you let me do is ogle you, that’s fine. You’re gorgeous, Steve.” She finished unbuttoning his shirt and reached up to slide it off his shoulders. When he reflexively pushed it the rest of the way off, she lifted the hem of his T-shirt and he pulled that off, too. 

“I’m gonna have sex,” she told him. “You do you.” 

With that, he was naked, and she stood to unhook the narrow belt at her waist. She simply pulled her soft jersey dress over her head from there as she kicked off her shoes, leaving her wearing a very expensive set of lingerie she’d worn specifically so that Steve would see it.

Steve’s eyes took in her lingerie, her feminine curves and strong, toned muscles, and it was quickly evident he was going to let Sharon do more than ogle him. He reached for her and she turned their bodies so he was lying full length on the narrow bunk, with her on top of him. 

Director Coulson didn’t get any more calls for the rest of the long flight to Sweden.

  


Steve had forgotten for quite a while where he and Sharon were. He’d forgotten about the other agents on the plane. Most importantly, he’d forgotten about the teams around the world, destroying Arias’s machines. Now he remembered, but he was so relaxed and comfortable in the tiny bunk with Sharon, warm and sighing in happy contentment, that he really couldn’t care. 

“You realize I should be monitoring the teams.”

“You realize everyone on this plane knows exactly where you are, and if the teams needed you, they’d draw straws and whoever lost would knock on the door.”

Steve huffed a quiet laugh. “I’m gonna be so embarrassed going back out there.”

“You could just open a door and jump out without a parachute. Everyone’s half expecting you to do that anyway.”

Steve pulled Sharon fully into his arms and nudged her with his nose until she looked up and he could kiss her fully.

“I love you,” he said softly.

“I love you, too.”

“Even though I worry too much?”

Sharon leaned back to look into his beautiful, long-lashed eyes. “Steve, I understand the amount of responsibility that comes with being Captain America. And I know you. Which means I know how seriously you take that responsibility. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

“I don’t know why you’d wanna take on a guy like me, but I’m sure glad you did. And I’ve been, um, meaning to talk to you about something. I was thinking…”

He was still hesitating when the pilot’s voice came from the scratchy speaker in the ceiling telling them they’d be landing in twenty minutes. 

  
  


Steve was, indeed, red-faced as they came out of the bunkroom to strap themselves into their seats. No one looked at them until the plane had come to a complete stop and the team members were making their way down the narrow aisle toward the exit, when it was all but unavoidable. Even then, he stammered and had to work very hard to meet anyone’s eyes. 

Not Sharon. Because of his position, Steve couldn’t truly know what it meant to be under a S.H.I.E.L.D. directive. But she did, and so did everyone else on the plane. They also knew how heavily Director Coulson relied on Agent Carter and how bad it could be for their careers if they got on the wrong side of her. Coulson had told them they saw nothing. They assumed he had a good reason, and knew it was in their best interests to see nothing. So, by God, they saw nothing.

  
  


The plane had landed in Odense, Denmark, but Steve and Sharon were not on the teams that would deal with the three machines in Scandinavia. One team would handle the machine here, and two others would head to Bergen, Norway and Umea, Sweden. No trouble was expected in those areas; their best intel said that those machines had been abandoned. Steve and Sharon were headed with a team of four S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to Stuttgart, Germany.

That machine was believed to be not only protected, but well-protected. They couldn’t get any information about who had laid claim to it, but there seemed no doubt that somebody had. 

Upon landing in Stuttgart and being met by their contact, Steve got an unpleasant surprise. While S.H.I.E.L.D. had been able to locate the machine, it couldn’t be precise enough. The problem with the location was, first, that Stuttgart is an auto manufacturing hub. Which means it’s also a hub for manufacture of a great many things related to making cars, such as auto parts. The neighborhood in which the machine was located was heavily industrial, with large, modern office buildings next door to older, smaller machine shops, across the street from mid-sized factories. 

No one had considered making a portable device that could detect the energy signature of the orbs on the ground. They were going to have to find the machine a different way. Steve was frustrated and having difficulty holding himself back from taking it out on the team, because this was only one of four machines they needed to destroy, and it wasn’t starting well. Besides which, now that Steve could finally do something about the machines, they couldn’t even find the one that was basically under their noses. 

The group stood around the van in which they’d arrived, trying not to be obvious about the fact that they were basically just looking around like lost tourists. Sharon paid attention to their tense discussion until it began to devolve into thinly-veiled accusations against the local contact. At that point, she left the group standing around the van beginning to argue about how to approach the most likely buildings. She rolled her eyes and got back into the van to busy herself with her computer tablet.

“Look,” Steve said, “We can’t just walk into these buildings and ask if they’re hiding a doomsday machine in the basement. I think we need to admit that we’re not getting this done today. We’re gonna have to move on to the other cities and hope S.H.I.E.L.D. or Stark can make a detector before we’re done taking those machines out. We’re wasting our time here.”

“We’re here now, Cap. We can figure this out. If they get word the other machines are being destroyed-“

”The other machines are mostly abandoned. They’re not gonna hear,” another agent interrupted the first.

“We don’t know that.”

“No point arguing,” Steve said in his most authoritative Captain America voice. “We’ll tip our hand if we start snooping around. We’re leaving.”

“But, Cap, we can-“

“No. We don’t know which building it is.”

Sharon stepped up beside Steve and took his arm, looking straight at a mid-sized office building down the block. “Nobody point. But it’s that one.”

Steve looked incredulously at her. “How do you know?”

“Because it’s the only building in this area owned by Jarman Arias. Now. Everyone get back in the van. We’ve got work to do.”

  
  


An hour and a half later, a long, sleek black limousine pulled up in front of the office building. Each of the people inside it now knew not only who owned the building, but also who managed it, and some delicate information about that company’s finances. 

When the chauffeur opened the rear door, Sharon’s legs were the first thing to appear. She was no longer wearing the soft dress she’d worn on the plane. Now she had on a chic, form-fitting skirt that was just a little too short, with a soft, low-cut fuzzy sweater and about half a million dollars’ worth of accessories, if you didn’t count her Jimmy Choo heels or her genuine Hermés Birkin bag. She touched her hair as though it were possible for a strand to be out of place when the whole purpose of her hairstyle was to look like she’d just gotten out of bed. She looked bored already. 

Steve, wearing a suit that cost so much he’d had to sit down for a moment, followed her out of the limo. He stood with his head thrown back and his chest out, looking at the building as though he owned it. Or wanted to.

Three of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and the local contact poured out of the limo after Steve, also wearing nice suits, but ones that were significantly less expensive than his. They were also the slightest bit rumpled as though, unlike Steve or Sharon, these guys might do a bit of actual work. One of them moved ahead and opened the door for Steve, who motioned Sharon in ahead of him. She simpered at him and he smiled indulgently, trying to keep his thoughts away from what he was going to ask her to do with those bright red lips later.

The group who met them in the lobby plastered on smiles and their apparent spokesman reached a pudgy, sweaty hand out to Steve. “Mr. Grant, I’m Karl Schneider. Such a pleasure to meet you. It’s an honor.”

Schneider was a pleasant looking man with a thin combover and carrying about fifty extra pounds. His heavy accent suggested that these were English phrases he’d learned very recently, perhaps specifically for purposes of this meeting. Which they were. 

“Yeah,” Steve grunted, looking around the lobby and rudely paying little attention to the man. Steve waved toward Sharon. “This is my, uh, assistant, Sharon.” 

The local contact translated that into German for Schneider. Steve indicated him with a little flick of his head and said, “Oh, yeah. This is Helmut. He’ll translate.”

Once “Helmut” had translated that, Schneider and the three other men standing with him shook hands with him and awkwardly inclined their heads to acknowledge the others, whom Steve made no effort to introduce, like he’d forgotten they were there. They returned the nods from the German men, but didn’t introduce themselves and didn’t move to shake hands. 

“Well,” Schneider began in German, clasping his hands together. “If you’ll follow me, I’ve prepared some materials in the conference room that will give you an overview of the building’s features, and a picture of the tenant situation.” 

Helmut began to translate, but Steve impatiently cut him off mid-sentence. “I’d like a tour first. We just got off the jet, I want to stretch my legs.”

Taken aback, but trying not to show it, Schneider smiled and wrung his clasped hands together. “Wonderful idea. We’d be delighted.” 

At first, Steve let their hosts direct the tour. The building had twelve floors, each of which were fairly uniform. When they got off the elevator on the tenth floor, and it looked just like the twelfth and the eleventh, therefore, Sharon’s bored sigh had a great deal of credibility. 

“You OK, babe?” Steve asked, putting a hand on her lower back and speaking to her as though she were a child.

“How many more floors are there?” She whined. 

Steve smirked condescendingly at the other men. “The lady’s seen enough of offices. Are the rest of the floors basically the same?”

Once Helmut had translated, Schneider wrung his hands again and offered a nervous smile. “I can certainly understand that. The other floors have the same square footage, of course, and are separated into units of varying sizes, as the tenants choose. Just like the ones we’ve seen. So we could certainly-“

“Let’s look at infrastructure,” Steve cut Helmut off as he translated.

Once again, Karl Schneider nervously tried to accommodate this arrogant young American billionaire he’d never heard of before today. He wished at least one of the (hastily planted) articles online about him had warned that he was a supercilious prick. 

Schneider led them first to the roof, where he proudly displayed the massive, humming heating and cooling units while one of the men with him bored everyone with details about energy efficiency, static pressure, and air-cooled chillers. Everyone was glad when Sharon leaned against one of the units and began to inspect her nails.

Steve indicated her with a tilt of his head and gave the men a look that would probably have been considered patronizing and disparaging even when he was a kid. “Moving on…” he said. 

They took the elevator back down to the ground floor and one of the men unlocked a door leading to a plain, concrete stairwell with metal stairs leading down. Sharon made a noise of complaint under her breath, which Steve made a show of ignoring. While one of Schneider’s men, a different one this time, began to talk about the building’s plumbing systems, they all traipsed down the stairway into the bowels of the building. At this point, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents began to ask a lot of questions in passable German, giving Schneider and his team the welcome opportunity to finally engage in some salesmanship. 

They grabbed the opportunity and ran with it. Which is why the German team never saw it coming. Once Steve had determined they could deal with everyone below ground in the building, Steve and the team selected their targets and incapacitated them. They used varying methods, but the result was the same in each case. They were bound, gagged, and deposited safely in a utility room from which the team would ensure they would eventually be rescued. Steve didn’t want to hurt them; it was very likely they didn’t even know the machine existed.

It wasn’t hard to locate the door to the sub-level on which the machine had to be located. What was difficult was dealing with the pseudo-maintenance men who were actually guarding it. They clearly knew about the machine, and they put up a good fight trying to keep the team out. So good, in fact, that Helmut ended up with a broken leg and had to be left to guard the painted steel door to the sub-level with a Ruger they’d taken off one of the guards. 

The guards themselves, now unarmed and with some fairly significant wounds, were marched down into the sub-level, where they could be watched and kept from sounding an alarm. Sharon was also particularly concerned about one of them, who wasn’t looking too good after she’d landed a very nice kick to the side of his head despite her tight skirt. She wanted to make sure he stayed conscious until they could send help, once the machine was destroyed.

All of the guards had been through a lot over the last week. First, they’d heard that Arias had been arrested and his plans made public. Then, when some of them decided to try to take the machine for themselves, they’d had to deal with the defection of about half their number, who hadn’t really understood what they’d signed on for and wanted nothing to do with being on the wrong side of the Avengers. The five guards around the machine now were committed, though, and had been expecting trouble. They were armed, they were capable, and they were desperate.

Steve could hardly have worn the uniform when he was supposed to be some spoiled billionaire trying to take advantage of Arias’s misfortune, which was fine with him. He didn’t need the uniform to fight. But he felt a little naked and vulnerable without his shield, especially because these guys were shooters. They’d hit one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents almost as soon as they’d found the machine, so Steve had two of the remaining agents fire into the room to keep the guards hunkering behind the machine while he and Sharon went in fast, crouching on the other side. Like the other machine rooms, this one contained nothing but workstations along the walls, and the machine itself.

The trick was to keep the guards from realizing Steve and Sharon were in the room until it was too late. That was accomplished by a combination of bullets (carefully aimed to avoid them) and trash talk in German.

Once they’d made their way around the machine until another step would disclose them, Steve took a breath and pounced. The noise of him pulling one guy up to a standing position by his neck and the other two reacting was Sharon’s cue. Steve slammed the first guy’s head into the second guy’s, knocking them both out, while Sharon did the same with a well-placed kick to the third guy’s temple. Steve noticed (again) the way she pulled her skirt up to give her legs freedom of movement. _Later, Rogers._

Although it was the first machine they’d destroyed, so it took a little longer than they’d expected, that was the only problem they encountered from there. Once their task was complete, they’d quickly located some emergency evacuation wheelchairs for the wounded, straightened their clothes and sauntered casually back out of the building and into the limo. A few people looked at the two men being pushed in wheelchairs, but beyond that, they got little attention. 

The local S.H.I.E.L.D. contact, whom Steve had called Helmut, made the call to emergency services to report the presence of the wounded and captured men on the way to the safe house. Steve carried Helmut and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who’d been shot inside, where medical attention was already waiting.

  


They weren’t particularly concerned about publicity, because most of the machines were reportedly abandoned; at least none of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s people on the ground were seeing activity around them. But Steve still didn’t want to advertise that they were coming, and there was no S.H.I.E.L.D. plane available, so he decided the team would take the ICE high-speed train from Stuttgart to Paris like most people did.

It gave the team a chance to rest, and Sharon a chance to ask Steve, “On the plane, you said that you’ve been meaning to talk to me about something. What was it?”

Steve became engrossed in the scenery outside the window. “Oh, well, I just… I, um, love you. I’m happy we’re together. That you’re, you know, my girlfriend and stuff.”

Sharon bit back her smile, knowing how shy Steve could be. It was not only adorable, it was also downright odd. Steve looked like that, had that body and had just had to hold himself back while defeating a number of trained guys in hand to hand combat. Not to mention the things he’d gleefully done to her (and let her do to him) in the bunkroom on the plane. But here he was, ears burning red, unable to meet her eyes because he was shy and awkward about his feelings.

“I love you, too. I hope you know I’m living a dream right now, being with you.”

That got him to meet her eyes. In this light, his were the exact deep turquoise-blue of the sky outside the window. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” She leaned up to him and he met her halfway for a steamy, invasive kiss that probably wouldn’t have been tolerated in the Second Class cars. Being able to kiss Steve like that was the very reason Sharon had chosen these seats, rather than sharing a group of four seats facing each other with the two other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents accompanying them to Paris. When they separated, Sharon kept her hand on Steve’s face, looking into his pretty eyes with what she hoped was all the love she felt. She hoped she knew what he was going to ask her, and she wanted to let him know that, if she was right, her answer was going to be a “yes” that would undoubtedly get them thrown off the train in Strasbourg.

She watched him struggle with it for a while, then settle for another, more tame, kiss before settling back down to watching the German countryside pass by outside. Sharon tried not to be disappointed. They had time. She certainly wasn’t letting Steve Rogers go without a fight.  
  
Steve was back to tightly mission-focused when they reached the beautiful old station at Gare de l’Est. He had already asked Sharon to use Google Earth to find the location of the machine in Paris. This time, there was only one building it could be, and he decided that stealth was the right approach in this case. The machine was outside of Sartrouville, not far from the Maisons Laffitte, in an ancient stone building that had, at one time, been a barn or other outbuilding. 

Now it was a mansion. Sharon easily found information about it online, not even having to use the S.H.I.E.L.D. database, and was ecstatic to find that it featured a large wine cellar that was described as large enough to be called a catacombs. Her excitement was contagious as she told Steve about it.

“Why are you so happy about this?” He laughed.

“Because we’re going to Paris, and we don’t get to do Paris, but at least we get to visit a wine cellar. That’s pretty French.”

Steve’s smile clouded a little, but didn’t disappear. “You are a glass-half-full girl, no doubt about it.”

“What’s the look for?” She asked, her voice communicating that she hadn’t missed the change in him and was prepared to listen if he wanted to talk about it.

“Nothing. I’ve just been to Paris before when there wasn’t time to ‘do’ Paris.”

“Bad memory?”

“Not terrible, as memories of the war go. All the Howling Commandos were there with us, everybody was whole. But… there was some stuff, yeah.”

“You can tell me if you want.”

“Nah,” he brightened, visibly pushing the memories down. “I’m OK. Might call Bucky later if I need to.”

Sharon hugged him. “Do. And I’m always here.”

The mansion was beautiful. Sharon would have liked to stay and vacation with Steve there for about a year. Instead, she held her FNX-45 Tactical on the couple in their fifties who lived in the house, and their live-in staff of twelve. Steve, meanwhile, disabled the machine and collected the orb. It was maybe a little anticlimactic – the couple was polite, if annoyed, and the staff was just frightened – but there was no danger and no one got hurt. Unless you count Sharon’s crushed hopes when Steve wouldn’t let her take even one bottle of wine from the well-stocked cellar.  
  


Steve flew the quinjet from Paris to Madrid, which meant that there was no opportunity for sexual shenanigans. No privacy, either. But it was very late at night when they arrived, so the team stayed in a safe house in Carabanchel, where the machine was.

After the serum, Steve didn’t need much sleep, but he was always very conscious of the fact that Sharon did. He did try to be chivalrous and go straight to sleep. That was before he cuddled up behind her, neither of them wearing anything because Sharon had insisted – with entirely selfish motives – that it would be unpatriotic to spend the taxpayers’ money on sleepwear when they weren’t even spending a whole night. Her warmth and the soft silkiness of her skin was the first thing he noticed. Then he felt the way his dick was pressed up against the swell of her firm ass, without really realizing that she was pushing back against him for that very reason.

Soon he was dealing with a raging hard-on, and she was maneuvering her hips so that he was positioned at her wet, welcoming entrance.

“I can’t keep my hands off you,” he whispered harshly, setting an easy rhythm as he used the hand that wasn’t underneath her to cup her breasts, toying with her nipples to make her react in the nearly-uncontrollable way he loved. 

“Don’t want you to.”

“I love you,” Steve murmured into her neck as he slid his hand lower. 

“Wait – I want to – let me go down on you first,” Sharon murmured as she pulled off of him to turn and face him.

Steve took advantage of the opportunity to kiss her deeply. “I was just thinking the same about you.”

“Excellent idea.”

Steve seemed a little perplexed until Sharon sat up and tugged him further down the bed, at which point he seemed to get the memo. “Oh, I…”

Sharon was just getting her hands and knees under her, facing the foot of the bed. She stopped moving. “Is this OK?”

“Yeah. Oh, hell, yeah, I just… I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never…”

“Oh,” she smiled broadly. “Well, we’re smart. We’ll figure it out.” 

Once again, Steve’s naivete charmed Sharon. It also made her feel a little slutty as she carefully positioned her body over his. When he actually chuckled a little, not only did it feel amazing against her cunt, but it also told her that Steve was definitely not turned off by her experience. Just the opposite. Which gave her a shiver of carnality as she took the tip of his cock into her mouth.

This time, Steve couldn’t even try to hold off until after Sharon climaxed. He kept muttering, and later exclaiming, about how hot it was to have their mouths on each other at the same time, and how he’d just discovered a new favorite position, which made it obvious that the very idea of what they were doing was almost enough by itself to make him come. For long moments, he forgot about Sharon poised above him as he arched nearly completely off the bed and shot down her throat, spasms of ecstasy wracking him.

Which, being Steve, he felt guilty about afterward. So he laid her down and licked her to an orgasm that had her screaming into a pillow to keep from being heard by the others in the house, and then fucked her until they both came again. After that, Sharon fell asleep, smiling triumphantly. She may have needed more sleep than he did, but there was no way she was going to choose sleep over fucking this man. Especially in a villa in Spain.  
  


  


The machine in Madrid was located beneath a church in Carabanchel. Steve couldn’t tell how old the church was, given the style of architecture favored in the area and the presence of ancient buildings next door to new ones built to look just as old. What he knew is that it was guarded by a priest, which changed things for him. He absolutely could not bring himself to use violence against a priest.

Sharon was Catholic, too, but she wasn’t entirely convinced the guy was a priest. He just didn’t look the part. For one thing, he was a little too buff to fit her idea of the stereotypical cleric, and as she watched him interact with the few veiled, black-clad old women praying in the small nave, his language seemed a little off. She spoke enough Spanish to understand pretty well what he said. But more than that, she was a trained spy, and the women were decidedly treating him like a stranger rather than their parish priest, and reacting to the same phrases she was. It was like he was saying things he might have heard a priest say in the movies. Sharon thought she knew a way to test his faith. It also had the advantage of possibly distracting him enough to avoid any need for violence. 

She made sure he noticed her as she made her way to a pew toward the front, knelt, and crossed herself. For several minutes, she simply prayed, as she was pretending to do. But she kept him in her peripheral vision, taking the first opportunity to catch his eye. They nodded to one another, Sharon with the slightest of upturns to her closed lips, while his smile was more of an invitation. That’s when tears began to form in her eyes.

When one coursed down her cheek, she didn’t wipe it away, hoping it would catch the candlelight so he’d be sure to see it. 

He did.

She watched through lowered, near-closed eyes as he came down a side aisle and took his place a respectful distance away in the pew.

“You seem upset, my child,” he near-whispered. “Perhaps you’d like me to pray with you?”

“Oh, yes, Father,” she said, making a show of wiping her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “That would be wonderful.”

She expected him to kneel next to her and begin to pray quietly aloud. Instead, he simply made the sign of the cross – hesitantly, maybe? – and folded his hands. Sharon could have sussed him out simply by asking him to pray the _Magnificat_ or perhaps the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, something that wasn’t obscure, exactly, but that he wouldn’t have learned from the movies. But that would defeat her purpose. If he was a fake, it might give her away entirely, and put her in danger. At best, he’d move on, which would prevent her from distracting him long enough for the men in the shadows of the church’s narthex to find a way to whatever was underneath the church. The internet and even S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database had come up empty on that.

“You are troubled, my child,” the priest said. That was a lot of “my child-ing” for the few words he’d said so far. Priests, especially young ones like him, didn’t tend to say that in real life.

“Yes, Father. I’m… Would it be possible for me to speak to you? Somewhere private?”

“Of course,” the man answered, and Sharon watched him try to mask his interest. _Gotcha._ If this guy was a priest, Sharon was… well, Captain America.

He led her through a carved wooden door, into a room in which a kneeler with a screen featured prominently. Good. A confessional. That meant quiet and privacy, and a good chance he wouldn’t hear anything going on in the nave any more than those in the nave could hear them. 

The priest first commented that she sounded American, which she confirmed. He politely switched to English, which he spoke very well, and asked if she would like him to hear her Confession. When she said what she needed was counsel, he took the sturdy wooden chair from behind the screen and brought it to face the other chair in the little room. Sharon sat and began to tell him of the shameful affair she’d had, which had just ended. Should she confess to her husband, or carry the guilt forever? 

Outside in the nave, Steve and one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents began to search for a doorway to a lower level, while the other agent spoke respectfully and quietly with the praying women scattered here and there in the pews. He asked if they would please move to the adjoining chapel, so that they could prepare the church for a funeral early that evening. The ladies kindly agreed, allowing Steve quietly and carefully to force open those doors that were locked.

It didn’t take long to find the one that led to a stairway leading downward, given that it was on the back wall of the church and one of the first doors they tried. That turned out to be the only locked door between the church and the machine, which was at the bottom of a second stairway, in a sub-basement. Being their third one, it took Steve and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents much less time to destroy this one and confiscate the orb than it had in Stuttgart or Paris. 

The problem came when Steve knocked hesitantly on the door of the room he’d seen Sharon and the fake priest enter. Sharon hadn’t meant to cause a problem. When Steve opened the door to see the priest giving Sharon a hug – which neither felt nor looked like it was intended only to soothe her troubled spirit - she should have just said he was her husband. The worst that would have happened then was he might have provided them some faux marital wisdom. But something playfully wicked in her caused her to tell the fake priest that Steve was the “other man.” 

At which point the priest became enraged and began to berate Steve for all kinds of sins Sharon hadn’t even mentioned (but that they had, indeed, committed, so she supposed it was fair). That brought the praying women running in from the chapel, which brought a Sacristan from somewhere else, which caused the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to re-enter the church just in case, and pretty soon there was a free-for-all happening. The priest, sacristan, and praying women all rained insults and curses upon Steve’s head (and Sharon’s, too, because she was now trying to help him back safely out of the church) in Spanish and, to his surprise, Latin. Which Steve knew, even if Sharon didn’t, because in his day, Mass had always been said in Latin. 

When the Sacristan went for a heavy wrought-iron candelabra, Steve realized there was no way of saving the situation and the team simply turned and ran. They could still hear the screeching of the praying women as they peeled out of the small parking lot into the midday Spanish sunshine. When Sharon looked back, the Sacristan was still brandishing the candelabra. 

Both Sharon and Steve were too Catholic, even now, to laugh. But the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the back seat were red-faced, with tears running down their faces, repeating some of the better insults and curses just to crack each other up again.


	28. Hey, Macarena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Anita team up (that's what the kids are calling it now) in South America. Bucky has a job interview in New Zealand. Bruce and Catherine do the math on their relationship.

Anita was about to get her first taste of travelling via the EXO-7, and Sam was nervous. Which was a little strange, given that he’d transported all of the Avengers at one time or another, including catching Steve in mid-air (without a parachute, because Steve) during the battle of the Triskelion. And Steve was heavy as fuck. The thing was, the machine in Nicaragua was about as far from anywhere as it was possible to get, and they really didn’t have time to deal with normal forms of transportation. The closest town, El Ayote, had a population just over five thousand, and had itself been no mean feat to reach. So in order to reach the cattle ranch ( _really, Arias_?) where S.H.I.E.L.D. said the machine was located, Sam was just going to fly them. 

They’d waited until dark so that they didn’t have to deal with witnesses and questions, and Anita was strapped to Sam’s chest. She complained that her abs were sore from laughing, because she could not stop comparing the harness to a baby carrier and herself to Mini Me. Sam wanted to be annoyed, this was his _thing_ , after all, and he was finally getting to show it off to her. But he just concentrated on how good it was to hear her laugh again.

In the end, the flight was a little anticlimactic, because it was too dark to see anything out here in the middle of nowhere. Also, because it was the middle of nowhere. The farm was a tiny operation, but its few buildings were the only ones for miles around, and it was impossible to miss the building housing the machine, given that it was the only pre-fab steel structure on the property, and it was adjacent to a massive, futuristic generator complex. 

Sam and Anita landed – one of Sam’s best landings with a passenger, if he did say so himself – and immediately released the harness so they could separate and hide from any potential guards. There were none. They worked together to clear the machine building and, finding no one inside, secured the entrance and turned toward the machine.

This was a moment they’d both been concerned about, although neither had mentioned it. Neither of them knew how Anita might react when approaching a humming, functional machine identical to the one in which she’d been imprisoned, drugged, and her mind invaded. For a moment, she simply stood, looking at it, allowing herself to feel whatever she was going to. Sam just waited, ready to offer support.

But she didn’t need it. A dangerous look came into her eyes, and Sam could almost have been afraid of the malice in her slight grin, if he wasn’t so relieved to see it. “This one’s mine,” she practically snarled.

“Copy that.” 

It took a while to destroy the machine, given it was their first one, and that Sam only helped with the parts that required two people. The process was noisier than they’d hoped. In the end, they were grateful for the noises of the livestock, even though that was the thing that led to their near-discovery.

Apparently, cattle and pigs weren’t normally as loud as those on this ranch were at the moment. Their restlessness woke and eventually brought the farmer out to investigate. He was holding a rifle, clearly having expected a coyote or other predator from past experience, and did a very thorough search of the area. Fortunately, he didn’t have experience with predators who could open doors, so he didn’t check any of the buildings closely. A long twenty minutes passed during which Sam and Anita kept flattened against the machine building, keeping it between themselves and the farmer and watching him from around the corners. Once they were sure he had gone back inside, they buckled Anita back into the harness and took off to return to El Ayote.

Not surprisingly, Arias had chosen to place a machine in his home country of Colombia, and that was where they headed next. Sam and Anita were glad that he hadn’t placed it in a big city, but Sam wasn’t happy about where it was placed. The town was called La Macarena, and Sam _Could. Not. Get. The Song. Out. Of his head._ He hummed it, he whistled it, he even found himself halfheartedly doing the fucking dance, more or less, a couple times. He knew Anita was having the same problem, because every once in a while, he’d hear her softly whisper-sing, “Hey, Macarena,” with a pained look on her face. 

Due to the isolation of La Macarena, not much was known about how heavily guarded the machine there might be. S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent an agent in to investigate, which had revealed that it was guarded, but the cover was brilliant, and the guards were good. It wasn’t at all obvious that there was even anything being guarded. 

La Macarena has a booming ecotourism industry, because it’s the closest town to the famed Caño Cristales, a river in which plants bloom each year in brilliant colors of the rainbow. It’s only about a hundred and seventy miles south of Bogotá, making it accessible to a host of tourists who hike and raft along the spectacularly beautiful river. Many of them aren’t looking for five-star accommodations, and the machine in La Macarena was located underneath a hostel catering to such people. It was cheap, even as hostels go, but it was also well-maintained and scrupulously clean, which meant that it was very popular. Especially during the season when the multicolored plants are at their height, there was a near-constant flow of people in and out of the tin-roofed stucco building.

That gave Sam and Anita a ready-made excuse to be in the building, even as it caused its own set of problems. With that many people around, it was going to be difficult to know friend from foe. So Sam and Anita decided to let the foes come to them. 

They arrived in their room, which was a tiny, stark white box with nothing on the walls and simple white sheets on the plain platform bed. Since they hadn’t had enough sleep on the plane to La Macarena, the first thing – well, the second thing – they did was nap for a few hours. Then it was time to make some waves in the hostel.

Meeting new people and expressing curiosity about them is pretty much a given in a hostel, which made it easy and natural for Sam and Anita to strike up a conversation with the two women checking in guests. The front office of the hostel was a large room with a table and chairs as well as some rough-hewn furniture grouped into a good-sized conversation area for exactly that purpose. When Anita began to converse with the women in Spanish too rapid for Sam to follow much, she explained that they were on a pre-wedding honeymoon of sorts. She was so friendly and Sam’s Spanish so bad but enthusiastic that the women, and soon others, found the couple engaging. 

When asked about the highlights of their trip so far, Sam and Anita had agreed that it had to be the lavish blowout they’d attended in the Keys. Sam had a business associate who had a villa there, and would they like to see pictures? Among the pictures on Sam’s phone were some of himself and Anita with a few of the celebrities who’d been at the party and, carefully mixed in, a couple of them with Jarman Arias, Sam’s “business associate”, between them. Sure enough, the women who worked for the hostel exchanged a look. To their credit, they didn’t ask any probing questions, but one of them did excuse herself a few minutes later and disappear for a while. 

It was hard for Sam to be happy when the goons took the bait that evening, because when the knock came at the door, Anita’s mouth was mere inches from going to work on his cock. “ _Hey, Macarena_ ,” Sam hissed, like it was the most vile phrase he knew. (Which, by this point, it kind of was.) 

Anita answered the door, in part because she spoke Spanish, and in part because Sam was busy pulling himself together, both literally and figuratively. She blushingly explained that they hadn’t been expecting a visitor and stepped outside the door, giving Sam a moment. The visitors introduced themselves as Hector and Ronaldo, and explained that they worked for the hostel and were cousins of Jarman Arias. When he could, Sam invited them in and the men gave him looks as mocking as they dared, in front of Anita. 

They’d ended up on the patio of a café/bar/restaurante a few doors down, with a crappy view of the muddy river, but divine _fritanga_ and an endless supply of cold Club Colombia Dorada beer. The men spoke about as much English as Sam did Spanish, so they got along in a sort of slapdash patois helped along by Anita’s frequent translation. Sam was once again impressed by her abilities in the field. She spoke quite a bit, but said nothing except what she translated for everyone else, which had the effect of rendering her essentially invisible. 

Both Sam and Anita enjoyed watching the men dancing around the subject they wanted to discuss, before one of them finally brought up the subject of Arias’s arrest. For a guy whose first words on the subject were that he couldn’t really talk about it, Sam talked about it quite a bit. It worked. His suggestions that he was looking for some new trouble to get into and oblique references to the machines piqued their interest. 

Of course, they didn’t immediately invite him to bro down with them in causing some profitable chaos. Mostly because they knew there was a component of the machine that only Arias had access to (or so they thought), and that was really all they were hoping to get from Sam. It didn’t matter. The team had now put faces to some men associated with the machine, which meant all they had to do was watch those men until they led them to the machine. 

Within twenty-four hours, half the guests in the hostel were S.H.I.E.L.D. Sam argued that he and Anita were now known to the bad guys, which meant they needed to do some rafting, swimming, and fishing. Purely for their cover, of course. It was the wrong season for the Caño Cristales to be colorful, but there was still plenty to do, and Sam forgot for hours at a time that their cover was, in fact, a cover. 

It was on a hike along the Caño Cristales, where they’d stopped next to a picturesque waterfall leading to a noisy rapids, that Sam told Anita for the first time that he loved her. He’d been thinking it for days. This woman, this stunningly beautiful marksman/spy with the delicious sense of adventure and the ability to reduce him to quivering, pleading ecstasy or, in other moments, to touch the deepest parts of him, had come within a hair’s breadth of being ripped from his life as quickly as she’d entered it. And that, more than anything, had let him see just how thoroughly she’d become entwined with his sense of who he was. What he wanted. And what he wanted was her, all of her, for good.

Still, he hadn’t planned to say it, not yet, and not just out of nowhere. But he’d been blindsided by the moment, the two of them lying on a woven blanket in the shade, with the music of the river in the air, her stunning beauty as she lay next to him kissing him back… 

She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she sat up on the blanket and looked around. 

“Sam, we’re in paradise. We’re working together on a high-stakes mission.” Her almond-shaped brown eyes came back to rest on his. “Those things can magnify emotions. You know very little about me in real life.”

Sam swallowed his bitter disappointment and covered the cold ache in his gut with his most charming smile. He was mortified, but he still had a bit of pride left. “All true. Forget I said anything and come back down here.”

But she didn’t let him pull her back down onto him. She kept her eyes on his as she said, “I’m not trying to throw cold water on this, on us. It’s just that I know quite a bit about me in real life. I know how I feel about you. I know that I’ve been in love with you since the moment you fake-yelled at me on the beach in Florida. So I need you to be sure, because this isn’t just circumstances for me.”

“Anita,” he breathed, false bravado forgotten as her words sunk in. “Oh, baby, you don’t know much about me, either. You don’t know that you are only the second woman I’ve said those words to in my life. And the first was my date for the Junior Prom.”

Anita’s answering smile felt to Sam like the opening rumbling note and drum flourish of “Trouble Man”. It was glorious in and of itself, but it also felt like home and guaranteed that happiness and satisfaction were on their way.  
Sam and Anita were both covered in tiny scratches when they returned to the hostel later that afternoon. They couldn’t know it, but the hostel staff knew exactly what the underbrush did to tourists who thought they were being clever sneaking off the trail to make love in the dense foliage beyond. Even if they had known, they would only have smiled even more dreamily than they already were, and been pleased that they’d solidified their pre-wedding honeymoon cover story.  
  
  
  
  
  
Westpac Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand, is often called The Cake Tin. Seeing it for the first time, Bucky understood why. He was nervous about this mission. He wasn’t worried at all about having to fight their way to the machine located under the stadium, in which Arias was a major investor. He wasn’t even worried about Joss getting hurt; she could handle herself just fine. He was worried because he didn’t know shit about soccer. _Fuck._ Football. He even still got the name wrong.

They’d done what they could to formulate a cover that would prevent the Americans’ complete ignorance of the game from showing. Bucky just wasn’t going to deign to speak most of the time. An American premier athlete having some sort of affectation wouldn’t be hard for anyone associated with the Wellington Phoenix FC to believe. Nor would it be hard for the club to understand the popularity of this player in the U.S. once they saw the posters, ads, and articles S.H.I.E.L.D.’s graphics and publications department had created overnight. Maybe the powers that be in the Cake Tin had never heard of him, but they knew a multimillion-dollar face when they saw one. And that physique? The guy didn’t even have to play well to be worth hiring.

Bucky had been mortified at having to be photographed like that. Half of the pictures where he looked fierce as fuck were simply the result of his genuine irritation. It wasn’t his fault he looked insanely fuckable when he was pissed. He had refused to allow Joss anywhere near the shoots, but she’d already stolen several of the posters and fake ads that featured Bucky, shirtless and sweaty, eye-fucking the camera as a supposed member of the Seattle Sounders FC. Even though they’d had to make his hot metal arm into a regular one for the pictures, he still looked like her raunchiest fantasies. She had also talked a very junior S.H.I.E.L.D. employee into slipping her a thumb drive with the films of Bucky doing soccer drills with the actual Sounders. She couldn’t care less about the game footage, since that wasn’t really Bucky.

As his personal assistant, Joss’s whole job would be to fawn over Bucky. Since that was hard for her _not_ to do, she figured it wouldn’t be hard to make it look natural. She just needed to keep her mouth shut and her eyes open.

The local S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had recruited one of New Zealand’s most successful (and notorious) sports agents to “represent” his new American client. The guy was getting paid an insane amount of money to basically help S.H.I.E.L.D. create a celebrity footballer from scratch and get him into the non-public areas of Westpac Stadium. 

Which is where they currently were. “James Buck” was wearing leather gloves, which the representatives of the Phoenix just waved off as another eccentricity. His tight jeans and black blazer over a form-fitting black pullover were normal enough, if obviously insanely expensive. They were certainly used to that from their own players. He had a bit of an entourage with him, as well, another not-so-surprising thing, especially with Americans. There was Reg Miles – and how the _fuck_ had this no-name Yank gotten Miles to represent him? – and a hot little personal assistant, as well as two guys whose roles were as yet undefined.

It was the job of one of the club’s assistant managers, Martin Taylor, to meet with potential new players and get a sense of them, while helping them get a sense of what playing for the Phoenix had to offer. And Martin was definitely going the extra mile for James Buck. As soon as Martin had seen the pictures in Buck’s press packet, he’d made it his mission to get him onto the team. Now that they’d met? Martin was willing to die in the attempt. Not only was Buck even hotter in person, with the animal way he moved and that bedroom purr when he bothered to speak, but Martin was definitely getting signals from the guy, even though he was a tight-lipped motherfucker. Ugh. Martin needed to stop thinking about his lips. Twice, Martin had gone the wrong way during the tour, what with glimpses of that ass and getting lost in those blue eyes. 

According to Reg Miles, this guy Buck didn’t care much about salary, but was apparently all about the amenities. So Martin had talked up the locker room and training facilities, making sure to show him everything, and taking him through some of the other features of the Cake Tin. He had to blink back his surprise when Miles asked about the infrastructure of the stadium. 

“The, uh… _Infrastructure_? Like, what, the struts holding up the roof?”

Miles nodded. “And plumbing, and the sound system, electrical, all that stuff.”

“Are you…” For lack of a better option in his confusion, Martin Taylor looked at James Buck’s personal assistant, whose name he’d already forgotten. 

“Mr. Buck has an interest in ensuring that the facility has the right feng shui,” she explained. “He likes the bowl aspect of the facility as a whole, to contain the chi, but it’s important to make sure that there aren’t square columns, or other features that could create disturbed energy.”

“Oh. Feng shui. Well, of course.”

Martin wasn’t discouraged. In fact, this was a good sign. The weirder shit a dude was into, the freakier he tended to be in bed. At least, that was Martin’s experience. So he led them through the garages where the field maintenance equipment was kept to show them the beautifully round columns. That actually got a smile out of James Buck, and Martin thought he might just have his own problem with disturbed energy. Holy shit, this guy was hot. 

Things didn’t get particularly weird until the assistant - Jane, he thought her name was, or Jessie - got out dousing rods. Actual fucking _dousing rods_ , like witchcraft shit. And Buck was looking at her while she walked around with them like the outcome of whatever the hell she was doing meant something. Oh, Martin was so going to get James Buck on the team, he had to be an absolute _maniac_ in bed with this shit.

“Oh.” She approached one wall of the huge room, and Martin watched everyone in the little group tense up. 

“Is there a problem?”

“Mr. Taylor, uh...” 

“What’s the problem?”

“Well, you can see for yourself. My rods are crossing. There’s definitely inauspicious energy here. What’s on the other side of this wall?”

“Yeah, nah, just, um… Nothing.”

“There has to be something, Mr. Taylor, this stadium is round.” 

“I… well… The truth is, I don’t really know.”

The assistant looked at Buck. 

“You concerned?” It was the most syllables Martin had heard the guy utter together all morning.

Jane or Jessie nodded, holding the dousing rods up as though they explained everything. “Well, _yeah_.” 

When Buck looked at Martin, it was all he could do not to drop to his knees right there. “Gonna need a look behind that wall.”

“Don’t think I can help you, mate. I’d be happy to, and we can definitely go out to the main passage again and go past there, but I’ve been here for a few years now, and now that you mention it, I’ve never known what’s in there. Has bugger all to do with football, I can tell you that. But as I told you, this stadium is used for other sports. Rugby. Do you know rugby? I think maybe it’s stuff for one of the other teams in there?”

“Oh!” The assistant instantly cheered up. “That would definitely explain it.”

Martin breathed again when everyone in the group relaxed, and the tour recommenced. The dousing rods gave a thumbs-down three more times, but each of those times, Martin was able to show Buck and his munter of an assistant that there was nothing to be concerned about. When the tour was complete, and he’d shown the group more of the Cake Tin’s underdrawers than he’d ever seen himself, Martin suggested that they all go to the Mezzanine Bar where they could enjoy a drink and chat about James Buck’s future with the Wellington Phoenix FC. 

It happened fast. One minute they were all walking toward the bar and Martin was flirting with Buck. The next, Martin found himself in the dark recess underneath a concrete stairway with Buck pressing full-length against him and a hand over his mouth. He wouldn’t have minded in the _least_ , except that damn assistant was there, too, and was frisking him, relieving him of his keys.

James Buck looked at Martin from inches away, and growled at him as he kept him from moving or speaking. It was surprisingly hot even in the current questionable circumstances, and Martin was almost ashamed of his arousal. Almost. 

“There’s something we gotta do, and we need you to come with us. Nobody’s gonna hurt you, or anybody else, unless you do something stupid. But you’re not gonna do anything stupid, are you, Martin?”

Martin, eyes wide, shook his head. 

“I’m gonna take my hand off your mouth, and you’re not gonna make a sound. Right?”

Martin nodded. He knew he was rock hard now, and there was no way Buck couldn’t feel it. He wasn’t a religious man, but he prayed that, whatever the guy was up to right now, they’d get to replay this scene sometime, with ravishing. Because Martin _needed_ to get ravished by James Buck, with his growly, threatening voice and the drop-dead sexy danger in his eyes. Buck removed his hand. Martin breathed deeply, but said nothing.

“Are we gonna have a problem?” Buck asked.

“No. No problem,” Martin panted back.

Buck took a step back and gestured for Martin to move back out from under the stairs and rejoin the others. They were waiting calmly in the passage, seemingly entirely unconcerned about what was happening. Martin realized he should probably be afraid, but right this minute, his head was so fuzzy from all his blood pooling in his dick that he could do nothing more than follow instructions.

The group began walking back the way they’d come, making small talk. Buck walked behind Martin, and that assistant took her place beside him. Martin could see her trying to hide a smirk, but it wasn’t the evil “We’re about to gut you” smirk of a woman who was escorting him to his doom. It was the “oh, you poor fuck” smirk of a woman who could see how hard it was for Martin to walk right now, and why. 

They returned to corridor outside the room that Jane-or-Jessie had said had “inauspicious energy.” Approaching the door to the adjacent room, Jane-or-Jessie took something that looked like a mini remote control out of her pocket and pushed a button. Nothing happened, but a light on whatever it was turned from green to red. She put it back in her pocket while the rest of the group looked up and down the hall. Several of the looks were aimed at the two security cameras in the area, and the now-blank monitors next to them that were supposed to be showing what the cameras saw, to discourage any shenanigans by letting the crowds know they were being watched. A suddenly-chatty James Buck began to engage the others in patently fake small talk while Jane-or-Jessie tried every key on Martin’s keyring to open the door to the room they’d asked about. Martin tried to explain that he doubted his passkey would work and, of course, it didn’t.

A group on a tour of the stadium passed by, and Buck gave Martin another of those smolderingly dangerous looks while the small talk went on and on until the tour group went around the bend in the corridor. Which is when James Buck took off one of his leather gloves to reveal a fucking _metal hand_ , and pulled the steel door open with a painful shriek. 

Martin found himself hustled into the room, and it was immediately apparent that it wasn’t any storage for athletic equipment. There was a door within that door, which Buck _pulled right out of the wall_ – oh, shit, there was a very good chance Martin was actually going to come in his pants right now – to reveal an inner room. Martin had no idea what the hell that huge, black, Chichen Itza-looking thing humming and glowing with green light was. But all of a sudden, he wasn’t quite sure what to think.

He watched as James Buck, gorgeous footballer _with a metal damn hand_ , crossed the room with a strut that made Martin’s knees week. His assistant, suddenly no longer daffy or meek, followed. She reached into the big satchel she’d been lugging around and pulled out a bunch of tools, some of which Martin had never seen before. Together, they began to mess with the black machine-thing while Reg Miles and the other two guys kept an eye on Martin. He almost laughed at that. He was so befuddled at this moment from the combination of arousal, growing anxiety, and straight-up WTF confusion he was feeling, the only thing he might possibly do is pass out.

For a period of time that may have been ten minutes or may have been an hour, Martin Taylor watched as whoever these Americans were removed a glowy green thing from the humming black machine. Then they removed a bunch of covers from it and started disconnecting stuff. In some cases, they reconnected it to other stuff. In other cases, they just left it hanging there. Then they wired something into it, threw a switch, and a bunch of stuff inside of the machine thing just kind of… melted. Martin knew bugger all about electronics or engines, but even he could see it was permanently fucked after that. 

And then the worst thing happened. Beautiful, sexy beast James Buck high-fived his assistant Jojo or whatever her name was, and kissed her. Like, seriously kissed her. And as soon as he saw the look that passed between them, Martin’s hopes of being ravished by James Buck wilted, along with his erection. He didn’t even care when they locked him in the field maintenance equipment garage next door. He was too disappointed. Maybe the damn Cake Tin didn’t have square pillars to fuck up the energy, but Martin Taylor’s energy was definitely disturbed and inauspicious now. They apologized for the inconvenience and promised to send someone to let him out of the garage, but he didn’t even respond. He just took a seat on a riding mower, crossed his arms, and began to pout. 

He was so going to New World after this and picking up a big-ass bottle of wine and a louise cake to eat all by his blue-balled self.  
  
  
  
  
  
Bruce was torn. He wanted to stay in Nur-Sultan, in bed, warm as the harsh Kazakh wind battered the hotel. He wanted Catherine to stay next to him, naked and holding his hand. But he also wanted to be home, alone, in his lab. Because he knew the agony of saying goodbye to Catherine was going to be worse, far worse, this time, and he just wished it was over already so he could start the process of learning to live with it again. 

He actually started to get up.

“Where are you going?” Catherine asked, surprised. 

“Well, I was gonna get dressed. Get my laptop so we can arrange for a flight home.”

“ _Now_?”

“I thought… I mean… Um, yes?”

In that moment, with his bemused expression and those sad, dark eyes, hair all tumbled from a night of sex, he looked so good Catherine felt it as a physical ache in her chest. “We’re in the middle of a conversation here. A pretty bloody important one, if you ask me.”

Bruce hesitated a moment and actually shook his head a little, as if he could make this moment understandable with a hard reboot. “It’s the middle?” He even sounded like an idiot to himself.

“Yes, it’s the fucking middle, you arse, did you think that was it? That you just say, ‘well, gawd blimey, Cath, sure would suck for me if I killed you’ and that’s enough to get rid of me?” 

“Is that your imitation of me?” Bruce spluttered weakly, realizing that she’d (probably) been trying to speak with an American accent.

Now Catherine got up from the bed, not the less fiery in her annoyance for being bare-assed naked. “Answer me!”

“Well, I mean, _yeah_. I thought I finally made you see why I can’t be with you.”

“Can’t? Or won’t? Because you’re saying can’t, but I just explained to you that you bloody _can_.”

“Wait… But you just said that you understood what hurting you would do to me.”

“I did. And?”

“And it’s a dealbreaker.”

“Apparently not, because I’m still here. Starkers, as it turns out, which is ruining the moment a little bit,” she muttered, her voice suddenly losing the edge of irritation as she looked down at her nudity with a semi-surprised frown. She returned to the bed and covered herself with the sheet again. “Come back to bed. Not that you don’t look really good right now, but it does make fighting with you a wee bit odd.”

Bruce sat down on the side of the bed, flipping an edge of the duvet over his lap and biting his lip. “Catherine, are you sure we’re both speaking English? Because I’m not following this conversation.”

She nodded and he was a little surprised when she took his hand again, given that the frustrated steel was back in her voice. “Then I’ll try again. As plain as I can make it.” Catherine hesitated for a beat and looked into his eyes. “You’re the only man in the world for me. From the first time you kissed me, there’s only ever been you. But I believed you when you said that we couldn’t be together. I honored your decision, and I tried to understand. But I never got over you, Bruce. You’re the love of my life.”

“Cath… I love you that way, too. But nothing’s changed.”

“Well, yes and no.” Bruce wasn’t sure how to interpret the tilt of Catherine’s head or the half-smile that twisted her lips as she said that. “Let’s look at this scientifically, shall we? You did a risk/benefit analysis on us staying together. You based that analysis on a hypothetical level of risk that the Hulk would kill me and, as you bloody well know, I never agreed with that hypothesis.” She scowled ever so briefly at him.

“Based on that risk/benefit analysis, which relied on _flawed data_ , Dr. Banner, you left me without giving me the opportunity to even fight for us, and I spent _three years_ without you. Yes?”

Bruce nodded. “Believe me, I remember.”

“Well, we have new data now. And it shows that your quantification of the danger the Hulk presents to me, and upon which you based your risk/benefit analysis, was bollocks.” 

Now Bruce cracked a grin.

“And it’s not just the data on the risk side of the equation that was rubbish. We’ve spent the last weeks gathering data on the benefit side, as well, and I think if you’re being intellectually honest, you’ll have to agree with me that the objective benefits of being together are logarithmically better than being apart.”

She stopped and cocked an eyebrow at him. “I have to concur, Dr. Mulready,” he agreed with a gravity in his voice belied by the smile he was now wearing.

“Well, of course you do. We’re astonishingly good together,” she said, waving a hand as though the point was too obvious to discuss. “So using the new, accurate data,” she threw another brief scowl at him, “the analysis completely changes. In fact, with the new data, the equation shifts completely and unequivocally to favor the benefit side. There’s absolutely no question that we can, and in fact should, be together. Q.E.D.”

She looked at him expectantly, but for a long time, all Bruce could do was smile and gawk at her.

“Well?”

“Well, I… I don’t know how to refute that,” Bruce stammered.

“You can’t, obviously. I’m right. So are you going to snog me or not?”

Bruce threw his arms around Catherine with a sound that neither of them could distinguish between a laugh and a sob. Judging from the number of tears that then fell onto Catherine’s bare shoulder and ran down her back, and the half-strangled laughter that escaped from where his face was buried in her neck, it was a lot of both. “I love you, Cathy, I love you so much…” 

It took him a while to rein his emotions in, which was fine because she was clutching him to her as tightly as he was holding her. Somewhere in his disjointed, broken declarations of love and expressions of happiness, she was hearing what she’d needed him to say since that night in London. The happiness that coursed through her was mixed with healthy portions of relief and a feeling of long-delayed homecoming she couldn’t have begun to describe. They were way beyond words, anyway. Far from being able to articulate their emotions, they could only use their bodies, and the wordless sounds they weren’t in control of, to communicate them. 

Bruce didn’t know when he started kissing Catherine’s skin, laying a line of slow, open-mouthed kisses along her shoulder to her neck. He only came to realize he was doing it as he felt goosebumps rise along her arm and shoulder and she tilted her head with a little moan to give him more access. As he kissed closer to her jaw, suddenly her skin wasn’t enough. He needed her mouth, needed to taste her and feel her kissing him back, as open to him as he wanted to be to her. 

She laid back at the same time he started to rise, putting a knee next to her thigh and moving over her in one move. She spread her legs to him and pulled him down so that as much of their skin was touching as possible. Still, that wasn’t enough for Bruce. He couldn’t get close enough to her, couldn’t slake his thirst for the deepest contact possible with this woman to whom he belonged, completely and forever. When he sank his cock into her, it felt, finally, as though maybe they were connected enough, but he still found his eyes open and looking at her as best he could while he slid his tongue along hers.

“I love you,” he kept murmuring, when he could, until somewhere in the middle it turned into, “Marry me,” and then that was all he said, over and over, anytime his lips had room to move enough. For a while, he balanced perfectly on the edge of wanting to prolong this joining of his body with hers forever, and wanting to change the angle and speed just that last tiny bit that would allow him to unleash the overwhelming orgasm he could feel coiled within him. 

Until he heard Catherine gasp into their joined mouths “Yes, yes, Oh, yes, of course I’ll marry you,” and felt the unmistakable beginning shudders in her hips. When she began to shout out her climax, he sped up his thrusts, letting them go needy and frantic for the few seconds before he, too, was coming hard. 

It was long, long minutes of slowly decelerating heartbeats and recovered breathing before Bruce did more than shift his weight just enough to one side so as not to be crushing Catherine. He wouldn’t let her any further away than she was, which meant that he pulled her onto her side as he adjusted their positions. His lips were buried in her slightly damp hair, and he mingled whispered words of love with the kisses he kept showering on her, even while barely able to muster the energy to move his head. 

“You agreed to marry me,” he murmured, when he’d recovered the strength to make actual sound.

“Mmmmmm…” was all the response he got.

“I know it was bad form to propose like that. I’ll do better. But it’s still legally binding.”

Catherine giggled weakly.

“I mean it,” he said, a bit louder, nudging her just a bit. “We’re engaged. We’re getting married the minute we get back to New York.”

“OK.”

“OK?”

“Mmmm. Married. The minute we get back. Agreed.”

“All right, then. Just wanted to make sure. We’ve waited long enough.”

Somewhere in the blissful fog of her mind, Catherine had the vague urge to call Bruce on the ridiculous irony of that, coming from him. But she was way too love-drunk and happy at the moment, not to mention half-asleep already.


	29. Why Would Anyone Dig?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Sharon got their own chapter, now it's Bucky and Joss's turn. Adventures in Australia!

Bucky and Joss finally got their chance to pilot a quinjet together on their way from New Zealand to Australia. Since it was Joss’s first time flying a quinjet, she acted as Bucky’s copilot, although she suspected that she would always have trouble getting Bucky to let her fly left seat. She didn’t care. She just wanted to enjoy the experience. 

Steve hadn’t been kidding when he told Sharon that Bucky had a particular type. For Bucky, there was something for about a woman who flew aircraft, always had been since he’d first heard of such a thing. He’d never enjoyed going through the checklists with a copilot so much as he did now, with Joss. Although he didn’t let his concentration flag, he spent a lot of time during pre-flight and take-off looking over at her, her dark hair in a messy bun, brow furrowed in concentration as she focused on her responsibilities. He could see the military professionalism and precision in her bearing and her movements.

He was happy to see that she didn’t spend all her time concentrating on flying, though. Bucky caught her sneaking looks at him until, once they were at altitude, she glanced over to find him openly watching her. Both broke into full, delighted smiles as the reached out and clasped hands for a moment.

“This is fun,” he laughed.

Joss almost giggled. “Yeah. I was crazy jealous of Jeff Traynor when he got to fly with you to Atlanta.”

Both of them winced, remembering that Jeff Traynor had died in the crash of that flight. That was not at all the mood either of them wanted today.

“You’re planning to just land this plane normally, right?” Joss asked, trying not to grin. 

“Everybody’s a critic…” Bucky sighed, turning back to his instruments. “But I’ll tell you what. If we crash again, I’ll get you those Hawkeye pajamas you asked for.”

Joss laughed merrily. 

Once they landed in the arid red of Alice Springs, Bucky and Joss had a half-day’s drive to the cattle station where the machine they were here to destroy was reportedly abandoned. It was located in an outbuilding that, like the one in Colombia, had its own power generating station. They had debated methods of approach, each of which had its own dangers. A helicopter would have been much quicker and easier, but equally obvious, and even though there wasn’t another building for miles in any direction, they didn’t want to alert anyone to their presence. They ultimately decided on a Land Rover, which would still set up a plume of dust visible for miles, but they could hike in the last few miles and at least hope anyone watching would think whoever was out there had stopped well short of the machine.

The building housing the machine and the power station were almost identical to those in Colombia, except that the building was significantly larger. There was nothing around it as far as they could see, so after lying flat in the rocky, red sand for half an hour and seeing nothing, they readied their weapons just in case, and approached. 

The building had a locking mechanism that appeared to use a code, but when Bucky tried it, it wasn’t locked. He cocked an eyebrow at Joss.

“Abandoned…” she mouthed, shrugging. 

He appeared to consider that for a moment – that was his thought, too – before nodding once. They took their places on either side of the door before he threw it open and they went in fast, sweeping the interior with their weapons drawn. 

The trap was so rough, so jury-rigged, as to be completely unavoidable, even if they’d been expecting it. Bucky had an ongoing argument with Tony Stark that the more sophisticated security was, the easier it could be to defeat. If they lived through this, Bucky was so going to use this to win that argument. 

But first they had to deal with the four men holding weapons on them. Two of the men had HK416’s, while the other two had what looked to be standard hunting rifles, one of which was bolt action. The ropes that had closed on them hadn’t disarmed or bound Bucky or Joss, but they’d sure as shit pulled their aim off, which meant that neither of them could fire an effective shot before the guards had them in their crosshairs. 

In other circumstances, Joss would have been amused – and, God help her, aroused - by the level of fury radiating off Bucky at having been caught napping like this. As it was, part of her enjoyed the obvious care with which the guy with the bolt action rifle kept as much distance as possible between him and Bucky as he disarmed them. That took awhile, given the sheer volume of weaponry they carried between them. Even with the time he took, Bolt Action Guy still unknowingly left knives on both of them, mostly because he was too afraid of Bucky to frisk him. Bucky’s snarl when he went to frisk Joss made him re-think that idea, too. 

One of the guys with an assault rifle appeared to be the leader. He spent a long time going through the contents of the backpacks Bolt Action Guy had taken off Bucky and Joss, while Bolt Action Guy took a stance a few steps from Bucky and the guy with the other rifle stood as close, covering Joss. Once the leader had finished looking over each item in their packs and grunting to the other guy with a HK416 about the ones he couldn’t identify, he looked up at his captives.

“So. What’re yous doing all the way out here?” The leader addressed his question to Bucky, which suited Bucky just fine. 

“Got lost hiking.”

“Did ya’. Always go this armed when you’re hiking?”

“Sure,” Bucky grinned. “Might be snakes.”

The man looked a little surprised. “Americans.”

“Yeah.”

The men looked at one another, then the leader went on. “I’m guessing you’re here for this,” he gestured with a shoulder toward the machine behind him.

Bucky did a double take, as though seeing the machine for the first time. “What the hell is that?”

Now the leader grinned evilly, and Joss shivered just a little at the state of the guy’s teeth. That much decay had to hurt. “Nice try, mate. Who sent you?”

Joss let Bucky do the talking as she scoped out every detail of the building. She could see that he was doing the same thing, and wondered whether their keen scrutiny was as visible to these idiots as it was to her. 

“Sent us hiking? Nobody.”

“See, that’s not gonna help ya’. ‘Case you’re not aware, I got all the power here. So you might as well tell me what you’re up to.”

“Is hiking called something else in Australia?” Bucky asked Joss, keeping his eye on the armed men. “Should I have said walkabout?”

“No, that’s something different,” she answered.

The leader turned his attention to Joss as the guy with the other hunting rifle took a step closer to her, the shaking in his finger just barely perceptible where it rested on the trigger. 

“How about you, girlie?” The leader asked. “You wanna tell me what you’re doing here?”

Joss shrugged and tossed her head toward Bucky. “Me? I’m with him.”

Rifle Guy took another step toward Joss, which was the step she had been waiting for. She reached out, stepping under the barrel as she did, and tore it from his hands. The guy squeezed the trigger in his surprise, but the bullet went harmlessly through the wall of the steel building, allowing a solid bar of sunlight into the room to illuminate the sand and dust dancing in the air. Rifle Guy went down hard when Joss coldcocked him with the butt of his rifle, and she turned as she pulled the rifle into position on her shoulder just in time to see Bucky take out Bolt Action Guy with a thunderous clout from his left fist. Neither of the rifle dudes were going to be taking further part in today’s activities.

But they weren’t fast enough.

The leader and his buddy with the other HK416 had their muzzles in the faces of their captives before Joss could get off a shot or Bucky could pull the bolt action rifle from his guy’s hands. Bucky and Joss froze.

“Put it down, girlie,” the leader growled. Joss tossed the rifle carefully onto the concrete floor of the building. She looked slowly up, her eyes going huge as she took in the semiautomatic rifle at close range, seemingly transfixed. 

Soon, Bucky and Joss were again standing next to one another, while the two guards began to have a muttered conversation. They were too close to try to keep it between themselves, and Bucky’s supersoldier hearing would have picked it up, anyway, but their accents were so thick and their use of slang so prevalent that they were far less comprehensible than they knew. 

Bucky turned his head to glimpse Joss. As she kept her eyes on the leader’s weapon aimed at her, she had a look of concentration on her face not unlike that she’d worn when they were flying the quinjet earlier, but she didn’t seem unduly frightened.

“OK?” Bucky grunted.

“Yep,” she responded without glancing at him, although she did turn her eyes to the other guy’s weapon aimed at Bucky. “You?”

“’M Good.”

Other Guy shot them a hate-filled look. “Shut up!”

The conversation between the two guards was short and decisive. Less than five minutes later, Bucky and Joss were standing in the fading sunlight, staring at a vast expanse of sand behind the steel building housing the machine. The Leader kept his semiautomatic trained on them as the three just stood there, listening to sounds from inside the building.

Soon, Other Guy came around the corner. To Joss’s apparent delight, he was carrying two shovels. 

“Oh, you’re kidding. Really?” she cried, suddenly happily excited.

The Leader looked at her in confusion. “What?”

“Shovels. The desert.” Joss gestured, smiling at the men like Other Guy had come from the building carrying cotton candy. “You’re gonna do the thing where you tell us to dig our graves, right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.” The Leader flicked a concerned look at his partner.

Bucky frowned at Joss, looking about as confused as the men did. “And this is a good thing?”

“Well, OK, yeah, there’s the whole threat of imminent death thing, but I’ve _never_ understood how this works, and I’ve always wondered.”

Other Guy stepped closer. “What the fuck are you on about?” 

“I don’t understand why anyone would dig the grave. I mean, if you’re gonna kill me, then fuck you. Dig it yourself. And if you’re not gonna kill me, we don’t need a grave. So… In the movies, they always dig. Why would anyone do that?”

“Shut up, bitch,” the Leader spat. “Dig.”

He motioned to Other Guy to hand the captives a shovel each, which he did.

“No,” Joss said petulantly.

“Joss…” Bucky said, voice low, looking annoyed and slightly embarrassed, mostly because he wasn’t going to give these assholes the satisfaction of faking fear. He could see where she was looking, which gave him a pretty good idea what she was doing.

“You’re gonna dig because you think there’s a chance you might live. Long as you’re digging, you’re alive,” the Leader told her. “And then there’s the hope you’ll find a way to escape. But if you refuse, you die right now.”

“Good idea,” Joss said.

“Dying?” the Leader asked with a sneer.

“No. _Right now_!”

As though they’d been planning and rehearsing it, both Bucky and Joss lifted their shovels and swung for their targets simultaneously. Bucky hit Other Guy cleanly in the head and that was that. Joss, having shorter arms, hit the Leader in the arm, knocking his weapon to the sand, but had to reach back to swing a second time. She didn’t get the chance, because before she could, Bucky had already dealt him a resounding thump with his left fist and he was falling.

“I was gonna get him,” Joss complained.

“I know you were. I was just savin’ you the trouble.”

Joss actually had to think about whether she was annoyed by that while they disarmed the men. When she saw the smile on Bucky’s face as she stood with the Leader’s HK416 in her hands, she decided she was definitely not annoyed with him. 

“Safety’s on,” he said, holding up Other guy’s weapon. “I knew that was what you were doing.”

Joss smiled back at him. “Your idea.”

Maybe it was weird to take a moment to embrace right then, and a little macabre to share a kiss that heated up quickly. There were two unconscious jagoffs at their feet, after all. But it felt exactly right to Bucky and Joss. 

“Remind me to tell you all the things you did just now that were stupid hot,” Joss murmured against Bucky’s lips.

“No problem, because I got a few things to tell you, too.”

They kissed for a bit longer before separating reluctantly. “Work to do,” Bucky grumped. 

“Yeah. What do you wanna do about these dudes?”

“Drag ‘em inside, we’ll truss ‘em all up and send help for ‘em when the machine’s dead.”

Joss began work on the machine while Bucky dragged the guards into the building. By the time he got their limbs zip-tied and had locked them in the building’s storage locker, Joss was halfway done. He helped her finish destroying the machine and they re-packed their backpacks, including the orb from the machine, made one more check of the now-conscious but deeply unhappy guards, and opened the door.

It was the kind of pitch dark where there was actually starshine, once they let their eyes adjust. It was also very cold. Somehow, neither of them had really thought about this, probably because eliminating the guards had taken so much longer than they’d planned for the entire mission.

“Shit,” Bucky said as they both stopped dead just outside the door.

“Oh. Huh. Gonna be much harder finding our way back.”

“Joss, we can’t.”

She looked up at him. “We have flashlights.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s not safe and if we missed the truck in the dark, we’d be lost in the desert.”

“Shit. Take their truck?”

“Gonna have to. But only as far as ours, and then we’re stuck until daylight. Can’t drive out here at night, there’s too much chance of hitting animals on the road. It’s so dark, you can’t see ‘em until it’s too late.”

“What, like kangaroos?”

“Those, and cattle, horses, camels.”

“Wow. Back home, all you have to worry about are deer.”

“And you’ve seen what a deer’ll do to a car. Imagine hitting a camel.”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, let’s go back and get their truck.”

As it turned out, the guards weren’t so great at protecting the machine, but they drew the line at handing over their Land Cruiser. Bucky and Joss never did get the keys out of them. Bucky spent a long time with the guards in the storage locker, eventually getting frustrated as he realized that even going full Winter Soldier wasn’t going to work without actual violence. But then, as he was looming over Bolt Action Guy, he heard the Land Cruiser start up. All five men in the storage locker looked up with identical expressions of surprise.

“Where’d you find the keys?” Bucky asked as he walked over to the vehicle parked next to the now-defunct machine. 

“Didn’t.”

“Wait, you hot-wired it? How do you know how to do that?”

Joss smiled guiltily. “I plead the fifth. I also get to drive. Our packs are inside; get in.”

“I gotta throw those canvas tarps we found over the meatheads in there. They can huddle together, but it’s already getting cold in here.”

“I’ll help.”

Once they were sure the guards would be safe overnight, it took over an hour for Bucky and Joss to drive the few miles to their Land Rover. They had to pick their way around rocks and other obstacles, and ensure that the SUV didn’t bog down in deep sand, which meant that Bucky often had to get out to test the terrain ahead. Eventually, however, they were relieved to see their Land Rover glinting in the headlights behind a particularly large boulder at the side of the unpaved road. 

They had both been thinking about what would happen when they reached it. Their ideas about what they wanted to happen ran along surprisingly similar lines, although they couldn’t know that. Which meant they were both feeling an edge of nervous excitement as Bucky pulled up the floor hatch behind the back seat to look through the emergency equipment stored there. Being a S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicle, it was kitted out with all the necessities, as well as several luxuries like real blankets and actual pillows. He smiled as he pulled things out.

Soon, they’d put the seat down and made a bed in the surprisingly large cargo space in the Land Rover, upon which they sat, barefoot and all their weapons stowed, nibbling on some kind of high-calorie nutrition bars and drinking packaged water. 

“This is really disgusting,” Joss said, holding up the nutrition bar. 

“Better than starving.”

“I’m not going to starve in one night. Besides, I’m not the supersoldier with the insane metabolism. You can have the rest of this.”

“They’re not bad. There’s berries in here,” Bucky said, accepting the bar Joss had only nibbled at.

While he munched at the nutrition bars, Joss answered Bucky’s questions about her childhood and how she’d ended up in the Secret Service. He was interested, and impressed at her accomplishments. When they’d finished their survival dinner, he laid down and put his right arm across the pillow next to his with an incendiary look of invitation. Without a word, she smiled and snuggled next to him, a hand on his hard, flat stomach and her head on his shoulder. They fit together so perfectly that they were both immediately aware of how comfortable it was. 

“Is now a good time for me to tell you how impressed I was with the way you handled those guys today?”

Bucky let out a huff of laughter. “Not much of a fight.”

“Maybe not, but now for the rest of my life, I get to say I fought by your side once.”

Joss felt him stiffen just a bit. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m about to disappear in a puff of smoke.”

Joss’s response was to shift her position slightly and slide her hand to the side of his waist so she was holding him closer. 

“Hey,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder. She lifted up to her elbow and looked at him.

“Are we back to that? To you thinkin’ you’re nothing to me?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

Bucky pushed her hair back, away from her face, and tilted her head up so he could see her expression in the faint light of the glow stick they’d activated. “We made a pact, you and me. Always honest about how we feel and what we want, right?”

“And no hurting each other.”

“Exactly. And I’m apparently doing a lousy job of letting you know how I feel, if you still think I’m… we’re…”

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” Joss said softly, leaning down to kiss him lightly. She stayed where she was, looking into his eyes as much as she could find the courage to.

“I keep doing that. I just…” She touched his face with a tentative finger, running it along his cheek and then under his jawline. “You’re so beautiful, it’s hard to look at you sometimes,” she gave a soft laugh, then took in a deep breath. 

“Honest about how we feel. OK,” she whispered to herself, then looked into his eyes again. “I knew what you looked like before we met, so it’s not like I wasn’t prepared for that part. And I knew that you were pretty damn spectacular with weapons. Or without them, for that matter.”

He didn’t interrupt, although her compliments were making him uncomfortable. Instead, he touched her face as lovingly as she was touching his. 

“But then you turn out to be so… sweet, and funny, and thoughtful, and you didn’t even blink when I told you about me. Hell, blink? You made being a mutant into something _good_.” Her finger was tracing his lips now, her eyes following its path. “And then there’s the way you kiss…”

Bucky smiled and kissed the tip of her finger. Now he wanted to interrupt for a different reason. Still, he kept silent as Joss went on. 

“I told you that I was afraid of falling for you. But the thing is, the more I know you, the more I realize I wasn’t scared _enough._ So… What I said, I say that stuff because I’m still trying to protect my heart. But…”

“But?”

Joss forced herself to look into Bucky’s eyes as she whispered, “But I think it’s already too late.”

Bucky could feel those words deep inside him, like she’d just unlocked something and released a wave of electric heat that rolled through him, complex and powerful. “You don’t have to protect your heart from me, Joss.”

With that, he lifted his head to capture her lips with his, kissing her with all the tenderness he could. He tried to reassure her with his kisses that she could trust him with her feelings just as she’d just trusted him with her life earlier. They both felt the weight of the moment, there in the emptiness of the Australian outback. This wasn’t about sex, not yet. It was about Joss taking a risk with her heart, and Bucky recognizing the honor and responsibility of her trust. More than that, it was about sharing and acknowledging the beginnings of a new love, with all the promise and exhilaration that entails.

Long moments later, Bucky rolled them over so that it was him leaning over Joss. He began to deepen his kisses, teasing her lips with the tip of his tongue to see how she would react. She reacted with a gasp that he felt tingle all along his nerve endings. When she opened her mouth to him, flicking her tongue against his, he was emboldened to kiss her the way he’d been wanting to for what seemed like forever. She not only welcomed it but kissed him back just as passionately, their heavy breathing and occasional soft moans loud in the enclosed vehicle. 

Her fingers found their way into his hair, softly combing through the thick locks while her other arm pulled him closer. Their bodies turned toward each other, touching along their lengths before Joss slid one of her legs between his, bringing them even closer. For a long time, they stayed like that, mouths exploring, breathing together, as the light from the glow stick grew fainter and fainter.

Every instinct Bucky had began to urge him to roll onto her, but he held himself back, even though he was pretty sure she was pulling him – consciously or not – to do just that. He couldn’t keep his hands still, though; he stroked down her back, then up her flank, dragging her soft cotton shirt with his hand, untucking it from the waistband of the khakis she was wearing.

He needed to slow this down, needed to back up a bit. She’d told him how she was feeling, but he hadn’t yet told her. He needed to hold up his end of their pact and, besides that, he wanted to tell her. Wanted her to know. Hoped that knowing he was falling in love with her would make her feel the way she’d just made him feel.

Because Bucky was falling in love. He knew it. Of course, he was deeply attracted to her. Who wouldn’t be? But he’d known pretty much from the time she pulled a switchblade from her hair that Joss was special, and everything they’d been through since then had only confirmed just how made for him she was. Now, tonight, having her tell him that she cared for him the way he cared for her had done something to him. He realized a couple of things as he slowed his kisses and gently backed off their intensity a bit. He realized he was just as afraid of his feelings as she was of hers. And he also realized that it was too late for him to do anything about them, even if he’d wanted to. 

Bucky finally made himself pull slightly away from Joss, looking down at her as she’d looked down at him earlier.

“You OK?” She asked breathlessly. 

In the deep darkness, it was impossible to see her expression, and Bucky decided he definitely needed to see her right now. 

“I’m good,” he said, as he lifted up further to reach behind her where there was an open duffel bag. Pulling out another glow stick, he quickly crushed the capsule inside and shook it to life, casting a warm yellow radiance.

“That’s better,” Bucky murmured, brushing a soft kiss across Joss’s lips. “You know, I’m nuts about you.”

Joss’s answering smile was worth having taken the time to activate the new glow stick.

“You ask me, you’re the beautiful one in this car, Joss. Flying with you today, and dealing with those guys guarding the machine… that was fun. Everything with you is fun. I never met a girl like you before, and I been lookin’,” he smiled. “I want you to know that those feelings you have for me, I got ‘em for you, too. Prob’ly worse.”

She clasped him tightly as he began to kiss her again, feeling her smile against his lips, and the heat between them quickly rekindled. Bucky didn’t remember his shirt coming untucked from his tac pants, but suddenly Joss’s hands were underneath it, sliding along his back, and the feeling of her hands on his skin instantly caused his brain to begin to short out. He didn’t really know how or when he rolled on top of her, but when he felt her legs part to let him slide between them, he couldn’t be sorry. She hooked her calves over his and slid one foot slowly up and down his leg.

Soon her hands were roaming, caressing their way to his waist, and then he was lifting up so she could flatten her palms on his chest. He pulled his lips from hers at her sharp intake of breath, suddenly aware that his erection was pressed against her and afraid he’d crossed the line.

But when he looked down, he could see that her eyes were heavily lidded and she looked anything but offended.

“Can I take your shirt off?” She asked, a little shyly. 

He just about dislocated a shoulder reaching behind him and pulling his shirt over his head. This time when she gasped, he knew exactly what she was reacting to as she took in his bare torso for the first time.

“Bucky…” she whispered, hands everywhere. 

It was hard not to lower his mouth back to hers, but she was still filling her eyes with the sight of his chest and arms, and watching her hands exploring him. He closed his eyes when she circled a nipple with her finger, then dragged the finger lightly over it. Once again, he realized his body was moving without him being aware of having begun, rubbing his cock against her as she caressed him.

“I wanna do that to you,” he heard himself almost moan.

All she said was, “Yeah.”

He really didn’t want to roll to his side, but he really did want to get her clothes off, so he lifted a little awkwardly and shifted his body until he was lying by her side. Joss sat up, eyes a little unfocused like Bucky’s were, and helped him pull her shirt over her head. Once that was done, Bucky slid his hands, oh-so-slowly, down her shoulders and onto her back, looking into her eyes as he unhooked her bra. Her dazed smile told him that she was entirely on board, which she reinforced with the soft whimpers she made as she watched his eyes and hands discovering her breasts. Long, slow blinks became closed eyes. Joss let her head fall back and arched into his hands.

Bucky suddenly needed to get his mouth, his lips and tongue, on her, so he sat up just enough to ease her back down to her pillow. “You’re so beautiful, Joss.”

She breathed a long, appreciative hum and began to comb her fingers languidly through his hair.

“You OK with this?” He asked, kissing the tip of her nose and grinning.

“I’m so OK with this,” she grinned back.

The only fully-formed words spoken in the next long interval were softly whispered praise and endearments murmured into skin, while they touched and caressed and kissed, learning one another’s bodies and how the other liked to be touched. They moved often, one lifting to slide on top of the other, or rolling to lie side by side where they could touch more of each other. As they did, they became more and more brazen about grinding their bodies together, until Joss was straddling Bucky, their kisses deep and invasive while she followed the pressure of his hands on her hips to rub against his cock.

“Joss. Wait, Joss…” He panted.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“We should, um… talk about what we’re doing here,” he gasped between deep breaths as he guided her hips until she was sitting up next to him. He sat up, too. The second glow stick had long since diminished to a dull light spot on one side of the Land Rover so that they really couldn’t see each other’s faces. 

Joss ran her fingers along her hair, realizing that her bun was hopelessly lost and simply removing the elastic to shake her hair out around her shoulders. Like Bucky, she worked to control her breathing. “OK. Yeah.”

“We were gonna go slow.”

“Mmm-hmmm. We were.”

“You still want that?”

It took Joss a minute to answer. After a slight hesitation, she reached behind her and there was a soft rustle and clatter before another glow stick came to life in her hand. “I want us both to be comfortable. That’s what matters. Having said that, though, we promised to be honest about what we want. And I want you, Bucky. I’ll take this as slow as you want, and I’ll enjoy every second. But my honest answer is that I don’t want to stop. I want to make love to you. Here. Now.”

Bucky reached to cradle the back of her neck softly in his metal hand, with which she’d realized he could be every bit as tender as with his flesh one. “You sure? Because that’s what I want, too.”

“I’m absolutely sure,” Joss answered, pulling him with her as she laid back down.

Side by side, they fumbled with each other’s belts and buttons, then zippers. Joss wasted no time once she had Bucky’s pants undone, reaching inside to palm his cock through his underwear. He had no control over the way he hissed her name or the way he moved to press into her hand. 

“Oh, honey, that’s dangerous if you wanna fuck,” he warned.

Joss’s laugh was low and carnal. “Get your pants off, Soldier.” 

Bucky made short work of obeying that order, and once he was completely naked, he pulled off her khakis, too. He moved to stretch out over her, but she shoved him gently to the side, rolling him onto his back and resuming the same position they’d been in. Now her hand fully grasped his cock, and she kissed him wantonly as she began to stroke him. He groaned.

“This is why I lit that glow stick,” she growled and lifted up onto her hands and knees, straddling one of his legs and beginning to kiss her way down his neck. “I wanna see you. I’m going to kiss as much of you as I can reach.” 

She took her sweet time, and Bucky wasn’t sure sometimes whether he was going to survive. As she nibbled at his nipple and stroked his cock with her open palm, and as he felt her hot breath and her wet tongue delicately tracing across his abdomen while she tenderly cupped his balls, his groans were half pleasure, half torture of the best possible kind.

Eventually, after deliberately avoiding his cock to kiss down the tops of his thighs and then licking back up the inside, she lifted her head. “I wanna taste you. I’m gonna watch you come.”

Just hearing her say that almost made it happen. Bucky was beyond words. The best he could do was a lame nod and a humiliating, squeaky, “Mmm-hmmm,” but she smiled wickedly. She got the message.

He noticed the billions of stars spilled across the sky outside the window of the Land Rover, and tried to remember the names of as many constellations as he could as he desperately held off his climax. She had her mouth on him now, and was doing the most deliciously obscene things he’d ever experienced with her tongue. It took Joss forever of licking and kissing and nibbling, sniffing and breathing on his most sensitive areas before she took as much of his cock in her mouth as she could, wrapping a hand around what she couldn’t fit. Once she started a rhythm, he couldn’t think about it or he would come in the first few strokes. As it was, when she had his cock fully coated in her saliva and he could feel the tip push against the back of her throat, it was only a matter of minutes before he was choking out between wordless shouts, “Joss! Honey, I’m gonna come!”

She sucked and hummed and softly traced his balls with her fingertips as he writhed and shuddered, his cries loud in the enclosed space. The stars in the sky became confused with the ones behind his eyes as he was helplessly carried along on wave after wave of hot, bone-deep pleasure. He had no idea how long he lay there, shaking and surrendering to the animal sounds being wrenched from him. He only knew that, when he came back to himself, he was stroking Joss’s hair as she lay between his legs, her chin resting on his thigh as she smirked up at him.

“That was… You’re amazing,” was the best he could whimper at the moment. 

She crawled up and snuggled back against his side, head cradled on his metal shoulder and hand lazily stroking his chest. He was a little surprised at how energized he felt, even underneath the warm weight of his deep satisfaction. His flesh hand roved over her as his breathing returned to something in the neighborhood of normal. When he felt her nipple harden in his hand, he pushed gently at her so that she turned, giving him more access. 

The more he touched and stroked her, the more he felt her hips move against him. Even this soon after his orgasm, he could already feel his dick stirring back to life, so he caressed his way down Joss’s body to her mound, feeling the wetness smearing the insides of her thighs. Bucky lifted up onto his elbow so that he could see her in the soft, yellow glow, see his hand between her legs as he slid first one, then two fingers inside her and watch her roll her hips to take them further in. “Fuck, Joss, look at you. You’re a fucking dirty fantasy, you know that?”

Joss just tipped her head further back and moaned indecently, arching even more as she fucked his fingers. After thrusting them into her a few more times, he pulled them gently out and used the slicked-up pads of his fingers to touch her clit. She practically came off the blanket and cried out, which prompted a low, debauched laugh from Bucky as he went back to finger-fucking her. Only this time, he pressed the pad of his thumb against her clit, so that he rubbed it as he moved his fingers in and out of her. The movement of her hips became even more profane as she began grinding herself against his hand, and he could see her tense, hear her almost stop breathing, just before she shouted his name followed by a string of inarticulate gasps and mumbled, half-formed profanity. 

Bucky had never seen anything so hot as the way Joss rode her orgasm, completely oblivious to anything but the waves of ecstasy crashing over her. The arm that wasn’t underneath him was thrown wide, as were her legs, feet planted to push against the floor of the Land Rover as she ground her hips, words and sounds erupting from her as she climaxed. He was already fully hard again by the time she was able to crack her eyes open enough to peer at him. 

It looked like it took much of her remaining energy to grin up at him. He leaned down and kissed her gently, pleased when she rolled toward him to clasp him in her arms and rock her pelvis against his engorged dick. 

“I still want you to fuck me,” she murmured throatily against his lips.

“Yes, Ma’am. You need a minute?”

“I’m no supersoldier, but I’m still keeping up with you so far.”

“And they say the Air Force is lazy,” he mumbled through the kiss, adjusting their positions again. 

She shifted until their hips were aligned, wrapping one leg around his waist and bracing the other foot on the floor, ready to push against it to rock her pelvis against him. 

“You’re sure?”

“Yes! Bucky, _please_. I need you, I want to feel you inside me.”

Bucky’s cock was as impressively-sized as the rest of him, but Joss was gloriously relaxed from her orgasm and dripping from hours of arousal. He had no trouble easing into her. 

“Fuck, Bucky…”

“Ah, honey, you feel so damn good…” He could hear himself making deep “Ungh” noises every few thrusts. He tried to stop grunting, knew he probably sounded like a rutting pig, but the tight heat of her was so slick and good, and her tits were full and pressed against him with their hard little nipples, and she was making sounds, filthy lewd sounds with his name mixed in, and it was so fucking hot to be here in the cold desert night at the red center of Australia, buried balls-deep in Joss Emerson with her bucking and pulling him to her with one leg wrapped around his waist, and then he was coming and it was almost too much to bear as he emptied into her with a strangled scream.


	30. Get That Song Out Of My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Anita destroy the machine in Colombia. Steve and Sharon spend quality time on the Isle of Man. Bucky and Joss wake up together in Australia. Tony goes after the last machine in the U.S.

Sam Wilson didn’t consider himself a religious man, but he was definitely a man of faith. He made sure to give thanks when the three men S.H.I.E.L.D. was watching did absolutely nothing of interest for the next twenty-four hours, because it meant that he and Anita were able to fall into bed in their hostel, forgetting even to eat dinner, and stay there all night. They might have been a little inhibited by the thin walls and the fact that half the guests in the hostel were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but that only meant that they were quieter than they wanted to be. The next day, they were able to just relax and enjoy the sunshine, walking around La Macarena together holding hands and talking romantic drivel. 

Sam Wilson didn’t consider himself a religious man, but he was definitely a man of faith. He made sure to give thanks when the three men S.H.I.E.L.D. was watching did absolutely nothing of interest for the next twenty-four hours, because it meant that he and Anita were able to fall into bed in their hostel, forgetting even to eat dinner, and stay there all night. They might have been a little inhibited by the thin walls and the fact that half the guests in the hostel were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but that only meant that they were quieter than they wanted to be. The next day, they were able to just relax and enjoy the sunshine, walking around La Macarena together holding hands and talking romantic drivel. 

It wasn’t until late afternoon that Anita’s phone beeped, letting her know she had a text. The message was simple: “Go time.” They decided that they could hurry back to the hostel because, if anyone saw their haste, they’d probably just think they were in a rush to be alone together. It was certainly no secret around the hostel that they were making the most of their “pre-wedding honeymoon.” 

When they reached the hostel, the lead agent on shift was standing outside, seemingly enjoying a smoke and scrolling lazily through something on his phone. Sam was impressed. Had he not known what the agent was really doing, he would have been entirely fooled. When the agent, whose name was Kelty, saw Sam and Anita approaching, he went into a very convincing “hello, new American friends” act that gave them a reason to stand chatting together. Kelty quietly told them that one of the agents had managed to follow one of the men they were watching to a small outbuilding behind the hostel, which he entered, but from which he didn’t emerge. Another man, however, did emerge from the tiny shack a few minutes later.

They’d found the machine.

Anita, who was the senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on site, decided that they’d wait until dark to move in. Until then, she stationed several agents around the hostel, and especially near the small outbuilding, to make sure they’d know the location of every person in the area once they decided to act. That was critical, because they could only use a small team if they hoped to get in and out of wherever the machine was without drawing attention. The last thing they wanted was a firefight where townspeople and tourists might be hurt.

There was no plausible reason for anyone to be spending time behind the hostel, because there was nothing back there that would be interesting for guests. Luckily, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. teams’ rooms had a window in the right location. It was a simple matter of seemingly casually setting a camera down on the windowsill, like any tourist might do. This camera just happened to be on, and to have a wide-angle lens that sent a nice, crisp image to any S.H.I.E.L.D. computer that chose to log in to the feed.

Once the sun had gone down and true darkness descended, Sam and Anita had donned tac gear while monitoring the scene around the little shed. The agents doing surveillance around the hostel reported that everything was very quiet; there were only a few guests around and one person manning the reception area. The go team was suited up, ready and in position. 

Sam took point as four agents converged on the outbuilding that was the entrance to wherever the machine was. It had to be underground, given the size of the shed, but beyond that, they had no idea. Other agents were stationed invisibly in the shadows around the area, but only Sam, Anita, Agent Kelty, and a fourth agent were on the team that would enter the shed.

Since there were no windows on the small outbuilding, Sam quietly tried the door and found it locked. The door had a small, cheap key lock on it, and Sam motioned for one of the agents crouched in the shadow of a car parked near the shed. She crossed to him, swift and silent, and took almost no time picking the lock without making a sound. She then resumed her post while Sam eased the door open and slipped a tiny disc in, then silently re-closed the door. 

Nothing happened. Had anyone been inside the shed, they would have made some sort of noise as the disc began to emit a sonic vibration. Although the vibration was at too high a frequency to hear, it would definitely have hurt the ears of anyone within the little outbuilding. 

Sam made a motion, and the entry team took their positions outside the door. On his signal, Kelty opened the door as quietly as possible, while Sam and Anita swept the interior, weapons at the ready. There was nothing in the shed, but a two-foot square hole yawned in the floor, the end of a wooden ladder visible sticking out of it. Faint electric light glowed inside the hole.

Sam signaled the fourth agent, named McNair, standing just behind him. Agent Kelty assisted her as she silently and carefully levered a pole-mounted apparatus as close as possible to the mouth of the hole without being visible from inside. Agent McNair thumbed a tiny joystick on the pole to control a miniscule fiberoptic scope camera, no bigger around than a ball-point pen, that snaked out until it barely passed the edge of the hole. Anita, standing next to Sam, held a small screen on which they both watched a dim, infrared display of what the camera saw.

There was nothing but the dirt at the bottom of the ladder, and light shining from somewhere to the right. Anita used ASL to tell McNair to snake the camera down the hole until they could see where the light was coming from.

At that moment, the sound of voices was heard from the side of the hostel building. Sam’s head whipped around in time to see a man in loose shorts and a T-shirt come around the corner, with another man, in equally casual clothes that marked them as tourists, beside him. Black-clad agents emerged for the briefest of moments, then melted back into the shadows, each dragging one of the men with a hand over his mouth. No further sounds were heard from either man.

Sam immediately put the incident out of his mind, going back to monitoring the display from the camera. He watched as the picture changed, showing the dirt at the bottom of the hole getting closer, until the screen filled with what seemed like brightness, although the red of the display was actually too dim to be seen from more than a foot or so away. McNair stopped the forward movement of the camera and used the controls to tip the end of the scope up, giving the camera a view of the source of the light. 

A man-sized tunnel about five feet long led to a large room where one of the machines sat, taking up most of the space. The room was surprisingly crude and small, given the locations of the other machines Sam and Anita had seen. It was dug out of the ground underneath the hostel, the walls simply shored up with thick, square wooden beams that looked to Sam to be about the thickness of railroad ties. There was only one guard visible: the one who had been seen entering the shed. However, there was a large portion of the room they couldn’t see, and there were moving shadows on the visible portion of the machine and the opposite wall. There was more than one person down there. 

They couldn’t know for sure whether there was another exit from the room, which meant that Sam had to decide how to approach this situation. There was no way to surprise the people guarding the machine when the only way for the team to enter was to descend ten feet on a wooden ladder, single file. Sam pointed to his belt, where a couple of flash bang grenades were fastened. Anita shook her head. Too noisy. Sam agreed, and opened one of several pouches on the belt, showing her a metal cannister about half the size of a soda can. She nodded and signaled to Kelty and McNair to retreat. 

Once the four were again outside the shed, McNair handed the pole camera to the agent who had picked the door lock. Sam took a moment to review the video taken just now from the pole cam, turned, and said something in ASL, seemingly to the shadow behind a dumpster. The shadow grew taller as the agent stood from his crouch and quickly crossed the distance between the dumpster and the shed to hand Sam a strange-looking contraption. It was basically a metal frame in the shape of a football. Handing the monitor to Agent Kelty and taking the metal cannister from the pouch on his belt, Sam placed the canister into a cradle in the frame, then handed the frame to Anita. He then accepted something from the agent that looked like a video game controller.

Sam flicked a switch, illuminating several LEDs on the controller, then pushed a button. The football-shaped frame emitted a faint whirr, then rose from Anita’s hands to hover there. Sam slowly and carefully began to fly the drone through the air and into the shed, walking with meticulously quiet steps behind it. The team formed up behind and on either side of him in the entrance to the shed and watched Sam maneuver the metallic football until it descended, motor so quiet it could no longer be heard, into the hole.

Anita held the monitor where he could see it as he activated the camera on the small drone. It took him very little time to maneuver it below the level of the tunnel roof. Once it was there, he flew it as fast as it would go into the room and hit a button on the controller. The canister activated, spraying a greyish-blue smoke into the room and quickly obstructing the drone camera’s view of anything in the room. 

Whoever was in the room uttered sounds of surprise and fear, but they ended almost as they began. The gas filling the room below rendered them unconscious as soon as just a small amount was absorbed through the skin. All Sam, Anita, and the two agents had to do was wait the fifteen seconds it would take for the gas to become inert, leaving the guards asleep but the room perfectly safe for anyone else to enter without being affected.

From there, all the four-person team had to do was descend into the underground room and destroy the machine. The team moved the one guard near the machine out of the way, but left the other two where they sat at a decrepit metal table. They’d apparently been playing some card game for pistachios, given the piles before each man and in the middle of the rickety table. They’d wake up in an hour or so, none the worse for having taken an unplanned nap. No one approached the outbuilding above, and the team simply did what they’d come to do and closed the shed back up.

By midnight, no S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were left at the hostel.

As he leaned back in his seat on the quinjet taking them to Argentina, Sam smiled to himself. He had enjoyed his time in La Macarena with Anita, much more than he had dared hope. And if he could ever get that fucking song out of his head, he would die a happy man.

  
  
  


Walking with Steve through the pretty coastal village of Heysham on the northwest coast of England was like something out of a dream. Steve wore a chunky fisherman’s sweater in a grey-blue that made his eyes even more beautiful than usual, with well-fitting jeans and a navy peacoat over all. He looked so good, Sharon actually felt a little tongue-tied a few times in the hours they wandered, waiting for the ferry to the Isle of Man. It was cold, even though the sun shone, making the waves sparkle out on Morecambe Bay. But even though it would have been warmer, Steve and Sharon preferred to enjoy the village rather than pass the time in the ferry company’s waiting room at the port.

They wandered through narrow streets, taking in the picturesque stone cottages and quaint pubs along the way. Although they stopped briefly at St. Patrick's Well, set into the stone wall around the rectory garden of St Peter's Church, they didn’t visit the church. Sharon was extremely interested – after all, it has stood since about the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. She would also love to have seen the ruins of St. Patrick’s chapel up on the windy headland above. But she didn’t suggest either one.

Had Steve suggested it, that would have been different. But something about the idea of visiting the famous churchyard with its ancient headstones, or the graves carved out of stone looking over Morecambe bay, seemed to Sharon like something Steve would prefer to pass by. She’d seen him purposefully avoid literature, movies, and even conversations that invited contemplation of the passage of time, or the forgotten histories of those long dead. Instead, she suggested a walk along the rough, rocky beach, watching the wading oystercatchers and other seabirds on the shoreline. 

The romance of the day was undeniable. Steve held Sharon’s hand as they walked, and kissed her at every opportunity. At the beach, he sat with her back against his chest and wrapped his coat around her as far as he could while they sat on a moss-covered boulder and watched the waves. He nuzzled behind her ear and they shared some heated kisses. Still, she was sure that he was quieter than usual and seemed just a bit tense. It didn’t distract from her enjoyment of the day, but she wondered what was on his mind.

The ferry was a large, sturdy-looking vessel with a pointed prow and an elongated back deck for vehicles and cargo. The boxy white superstructure featured a large, round, blue and red logo with a white symbol in the center: the three armored legs with spurs that decorated the flag of the Isle of Man. There was newer, sleeker and faster catamaran ferry, but Steve said that he preferred the more traditional design of this one. Rather than spend the three and a half hour trip crowded in a lounge full of seats, they chose to have lunch in the café/bar. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was pleasant and seemed, somehow, more their style than some Tony Stark-worthy party yacht. In any event, when compared to the Staten Island ferry back home, it was grand. 

After lunch, they went up onto the deck of the ferry. They were fortunate. The sea, which could be rough between England and the Isle of Man, was fairly calm, and it was warm enough, if they huddled together, to sit on one of the benches on the deck and watch the misty coastline while it was visible. 

Once they docked in Douglas, the Isle of Man's largest town, they were met by a roughened, red-faced man who identified himself only as “Clive,” and only because Steve directly asked him his name. “Clive” handed Steve the keys to a MINI Countryman and walked briskly away. While Steve took his time familiarizing himself with driving a car with the steering wheel on the right, Sharon tried to get over the idea that MINI made an SUV. She offered more than once to drive, since she’d had experience with right-wheel driving, but Steve insisted. Sharon would probably have been affronted if it had been any other man, but it was Steve, which meant she was charmed instead.

Sharon used an app on her S.H.I.E.L.D. phone to direct Steve around the western side of the island. The information they had was that the machine here was located in a lighthouse, and had been abandoned. What they hadn’t known, until after some difficulty searching for the entrance road, was that the lighthouse itself was abandoned. 

Standing at the edge of a rocky promontory and lashed almost continuously by high winds, the lighthouse was made of rough-hewn stone and connected to a keeper’s house made of the same stone. It was not yet a ruin, but the keeper’s house had clearly been untenanted for a long time. According to S.H.I.E.L.D., the light itself had been built in the late 1700’s, new by U.K. standards. But it had been replaced by a radio beacon in the tower forty years earlier, so the light keeper’s cottage had been abandoned. The house was now roofless, with one wall partially collapsed. The radio beacon was now located on massive, sea-swept rocks below the headland in the Irish Sea, so the tower had also been abandoned. It was nonetheless in much better shape than the house. 

Steve drove to the end of the gravel road that stopped short of the keeper’s cottage. From there, he and Sharon made a show of taking pictures of the lighthouse and the keeper’s quarters, the sea from the headland, and each other. If anyone was watching, they would look like tourists who had been lucky enough to spot the well-concealed entrance to the road that led to the light. 

Steve seemed to like the novelty of it as much as Sharon did, but both kept their minds on the job they had to do. He pointed out to her a rock fence that appeared to serve no purpose, and was also unmistakably new, even though someone had attempted to dirty it and crack some of the rocks to make it look as old as possible. They guessed that the fence covered the disturbance in the ground where the heavy-duty power lines must be if there was, indeed, a machine in the lighthouse. No one would be able to tell that Sharon had used the advanced lens of her camera to zero in on the shiny new hardware on the door into the lighthouse itself. They might have seen her show Steve the picture on the little screen, but tourists did that all the time, and Sharon needed no words to tell him what he was looking at. 

The abandoned place had a distinct feeling of being forgotten by time, but that didn’t seem to bother Steve. The location and even the old house and tower were gorgeous, and Steven and Sharon had them all to themselves. They spent far longer than was necessary, enjoying the harsh wind and the beauty of the Irish Sea, taking picture after picture of the beautiful old stone lighthouse with its intricate, rusted railing around the light. The only thing that eventually drove them back to their little SUV was the fading light.

Steve had arranged for a tiny seaside cottage on the promenade in Peel, on the west coast of the Isle of Man and eight miles or so down the coast from the ancient lighthouse. They went to the cottage then, so they could prepare to return to the lighthouse once it was fully dark. Sharon thought she’d never seen such a cozy, perfect little house. The décor was maybe a little heavy on ruffles for Steve, but the cottage had thick rugs and a large stone fireplace, and the bed was large and comfortable. The little cottage was steps from the white sand of Peel Beach and from the windows, they could see Peel Castle. The rental agent had told Steve that, on a clear day, they would even be able to see Ireland to the West and Scotland to the North.

Both Sharon and Steve wished they didn’t have work to do. They would have preferred simply to enjoy Peel.

As it turned out, destroying the machine was a simple matter of returning to the lighthouse with the lights of the MINI turned off. There was no indication in the clay of the road that anyone but them had used it in quite a while. When they reached the lighthouse, Steve pulled the locks from the heavy oak door into the tower and, just inside, they found the machine, sitting in the middle of the circular ground floor. The few windows in the stone tower had all been covered over with wooden shutters that fit tightly to the frames, preventing the sickly green glow of the orb from being seen by anyone outside.

Within half an hour, they had destroyed the machine, Steve had the orb in his backpack, and they were making their way carefully up the circular stairs to the light itself. The view would have been spectacular in the daytime, but it was still beautiful and romantic in the light of the crescent moon.

Once they reached the top of the tower, they stood, Steve behind Sharon holding her wrapped in his arms as they gazed out at the moon glinting on the water, and the endless expanse of stars. Below, the waves foamed white around the massive boulders scattered below the cliff upon which the lighthouse stood.

“I feel like I’m in a fairy tale,” Sharon breathed.

“Except, if this was a fairy tale, you’d be a prisoner here. The beautiful princess locked away in the tower.”

Sharon turned within his arms to embrace him, smiling up into his face. “Maybe I was. But you’re the brave, handsome knight who’s come to rescue me. We fall in love, and live happily ever after.”

She felt Steve tighten his arms around her. Suddenly, he seemed just a touch nervous, although his smile didn’t falter and the mildly dazed look on his face didn’t change. “I already fell in love with you.”

“And I fell in love with you.”

Steve gave Sharon a long, slow kiss. “So I guess that just leaves the happily ever after part. And I was thinkin’, maybe you might wanna… get started on that.”

“Oh? What did you have in mind?” 

“Well, I thought maybe we could, um… I could… relocate. At least partly. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s in Washington, and it wouldn’t take much of anything to set up a second base for the Avengers there. We probably should have done it already, anyway.” Steve swallowed hard. “And then we could, if you wanted, we could… live together. Would you, um… Well, would you?”

Steve looked like he’d just pulled the pin from a grenade. But he didn’t look like that for long, because Sharon’s entire countenance lit up, answering his question before she had a chance to whisper a shaky, “Yes!”

She squeezed him as hard as she could with her arms around his neck, and they hugged and laughed for a few moments before Steve relaxed his embrace enough to look down into Sharon’s face. 

“I love you, Sharon. I do.”

“I love you, too, Steve. You’ve made me very happy, you know. Not just because you want to live together, but because now I know what you’ve been nervous about all day.”

Steve smiled that all-American smile that, combined with his slight blush, was irresistible to wide swaths of humanity. “Yeah. That was it.”

They stood together in the huge light chamber, surrounded by sea and stars, with the moon sparkling on the waves until the fog began to roll in. Steve and Sharon sealed their agreement with kiss after kiss until, finally, they decided that it was time to go back to their little cottage by the beach and test out that ruffly bed.

  
  
  


Bucky woke up feeling a little sore from sleeping on the hard surface of the cargo compartment of the Land Rover. He noticed it for all of half a second, which is how long it took to realize that the soft, warm weight on him was Joss’s naked body. He could hear the slightest purr of a snore, telling him that she was still sound asleep. 

He stayed still. He didn’t want to wake her quite yet. There was no need, for one thing, because the orange-pink dawn hadn’t illuminated the alien desert landscape quite enough yet to begin the drive back to Alice Springs. More than that, though, he wanted to enjoy this moment, his first time waking up with her, after their first night together. Bucky wanted to appreciate the way she smelled, warm and sweet, and the shape of her bare back and shoulders above the edge of the blanket. He savored the heaviness of her arm across his chest and the way her fingers clung to his metal bicep, even in her sleep. Yeah, this was a moment he wanted to revel in for a while.

Bucky hadn’t been with a woman in a very long time. It had been even longer since he’d woken up with one in his arms. But that wasn’t why he was feeling so soft and tender he was glad Steve wasn’t here to see him getting so schmaltzy. It was Joss. It was the fearless, weapons-crazy spitfire whose thick, dark hair was currently tickling his chest, and the way her teasing grin and her lusty smolder both made him weak in the knees. It was her apartment in an old house that felt like home the moment he walked in. It was the fact that she didn’t hesitate to wade into trouble with him, and the way he knew, without a flicker of doubt, that she had his back anytime they did. 

Ultimately Joss stirred, then blinked slowly awake, roused by a combination of Bucky’s body reacting to her and a sense of his wakefulness. In the half-light that now illuminated the Land Rover, Bucky watched her question, then realize where she was, and felt a deep thrill as her lips immediately curved up in a smile. She looked up to see his eyes on her.

“Hi,” she said drowsily.

“Hi, yourself. You’re beautiful when you sleep.”

Joss giggled a little at that, turning her face in toward his chest. “I doubt that.”

“You are,” Bucky assured her as he moved to reposition them on their sides facing one another. As nice as this was, it felt good to rest his weight somewhere other than his back against that hard floor. He smiled into Joss’s eyes, both a greeting and a question.

She smiled back and lifted her chin to kiss him. In Bucky’s current state, it didn’t take long for the kiss to get serious.

“Your mouth is sinful,” Joss said when they eventually came up for a breath. “I’m so gonna have to go to confession.”

Bucky chuckled wickedly. “Are you Catholic?”

“No, but for you, I think I’m gonna have to make an exception, because… ooooohhhh…”

That was the end of conversation for a long time. By the time Bucky and Joss lay side by side again, recovering their breath, it was full daylight outside the truck.

Joss groaned in what sounded like disappointment. “That was… I feel… You know, it would make my life easier if you were terrible in bed. I was kind of hoping you would be.”

“Sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“Really?”

“Oh, hell no,” she laughed, and rolled back toward Bucky to kiss him some more.

He kissed her back, slow and indulgent, but when he pressed his forehead to hers, he was frowning slightly. “We should get going.”

Joss groaned louder, but began the slow, painful process of extricating herself from Bucky’s arms. Although they’d both rather have stayed snuggled together, at least they could look forward to flying the quinjet together again as they traveled to Papua New Guinea, where their last machine awaited them.

  
  
  


On a sunny day – like there’s any other kind in North Central New Mexico – the Red Stone Reservoir was like an unexpected teal-green jewel set among the harsh beauty of the rocky, red plain west of the Sangre de Christo Mountains. The Red Stone dam impounded the Rio Hierro - part of the Rio Grande river system - to create a five thousand acre lake of clear, cold water surrounded by layered, red sandstone cliffs with hazy mountains in the near distance. It was over six thousand feet above sea level, and Tony Stark thought he really needed a cabin somewhere on this lake. 

He wasn’t flying around above the awe-inspiring landscape just to scope out real estate, however. In full Ironman armor, he was doing reconnaissance. He needed to figure out how to take out this last machine in the U.S. with a minimum of disruption and without being killed. Which meant he needed to figure out how to get in and out of the dam control complex without being seen. Ideally, he wanted to find a way to do it alone. 

Tony had to hand it to Arias. He’d hidden this particular machine and its power supply in plain sight, and he’d gotten the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to pay for it. Red Stone dam was an earth embankment dam just over three hundred and fifty feet high and two thousand feet long. It had initially been designed and built simply for flood control, irrigation and municipal water storage. As of 1995, however, the dam was also used for hydroelectric generation.

Jarman Arias had really had no trouble convincing the town of Taos, and several other surrounding communities, that generating electricity at Red Stone dam was all upside for them. So in the early ‘90’s, Arias’s handpicked team had bribed their way into winning the contract to retrofit the dam. Who was to notice if, among the huge infrastructure supporting the turbine, they also built another, modest-sized room, the purpose of which everyone assumed someone else knew? And who was to notice the ordering of a few extra machine parts and a crew building something vaguely electrical-looking as part of the project? Best of all, the power for the machine was built right into the project. 

Friday had done a masterful job of comparing the published plans of the original dam with those for the retrofit, and determined exactly where the machine had to be. Neither Friday nor S.H.I.E.L.D. could know whether the machine was still guarded, because technicians were needed to run the dam itself. There was no way to know whether they had other jobs. 

Tony wasn’t worried. He was just anxious to get this done so he could start the vacation he’d made Pepper swear they would take: she’d already agreed to two weeks minimum, and absolutely no cell phones. He was still working on the “no clothing allowed” part.

He had just about everything he needed. He’d determined the best way to approach without detection, and Friday had successfully hacked into the Army Corps of Engineers’ systems so that he knew when the fewest technicians would be on site. He just needed to figure out where to land tonight. The Ironman suit was cool as fuck, you didn’t have to tell Tony that, but it was also just a tad noticeable if you, for example, wandered into the control facility for a small dam in the wee hours of the morning. Which meant he’d need to leave the suit and walk in, so Tony needed somewhere safe to do that among the piñon, juniper, and sage dotting the colored rock in the area. 

Ah. There it was. The dam builders had filled in a canyon, and one of the walls bent backward on itself, forming a small but very tall amphitheater of sorts about a quarter-mile behind the building that housed the control room for the dam. He could land there, leave the suit well-concealed behind any of the boulders that had tumbled down from the cliffs over the centuries, and simply saunter into the dam complex. There wasn’t even a guardhouse at the gate, just a numerical keypad. Friday had actually been insulted to be asked to determine the combination. She’d done it before Tony had time to finish giving her the instruction, but she’d made no secret of how far beneath her skills she considered the task.

At two a.m., Tony flew in, as low as he dared, and lowered himself into the tall amphitheater near the dam control complex. He touched the switches that opened his Ironman suit and retracted it as small as this particular version got, which fit nicely between the cliff wall and a group of three boulders seemingly placed there for that purpose.

It was actually chilly even in his flannel shirt and jeans. The short quarter-mile walk over the rocky, sandy ground was no problem, nor was the keypad at the gate. 

Now came the part where it really paid to be full of shit. If he met anyone, he needed to be able to talk himself into the facility. Fortunately, Tony was entirely full of shit, as anyone who had ever met him would tell you, so he strode, loose-limbed and cocky, up to the service entrance at the side of the corrugated metal building. It, too, locked with an electronic keypad, and Tony had to murmur quiet sweet nothings to Friday before she would crack the code for him. Eventually, she did, although it had cost him. Friday really liked Bruce, and was quite satisfied to have extorted some additional administrative permissions for him in her system, in exchange for the humiliating but entirely elementary task of hacking such a primitive security system.

Tony knew exactly where he was going. He knew where machine was, where the dam technicians on duty were, and how to get to the former without being seen by the latter. What he didn’t know, that made this mission slightly interesting, was anything about the security around the machine. There might be guards. He didn’t think so, but there just weren’t satellites in the area that Friday could infiltrate in order to get real-time data on exactly how many people were inside the control building. He was less concerned about the physical security: locks and such. Other Avengers might be able to bust down any door between them and the machine, but he was Tony Stark. He could get through any security with less noise, less destruction, and way more savoir faire. 

What he couldn’t do, as it turned out, was avoid getting three bullets to the chest from the trigger-happy (and, it must be said, extremely jumpy) asshole who surprised him in the concrete tunnel. The last thing Tony heard before losing consciousness was Friday’s voice saying, “Boss? Boss? Was that a gunshot? Your vital signs are suddenly quite anomalous. Boss?”


	31. Not The T-Shirt!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony hates getting shot. Steve and Sharon race back to the U.S. to help Clint and Natasha rescue Tony. Bucky and Joss do, too, but Bucky kind of hopes Tony's safe by the time they can get back from Australia. Sam and Anita learn how pet food is made.

Welp, Tony had finally found something he hated more than staff meetings. 

It really fucking hurt getting shot in the chest. All three times. So when he regained consciousness on the concrete floor of a cold, damp room, looking into the face of the same inbred asshole who’d shot him, he was not as polite as he might otherwise have been. He also couldn’t breathe, which meant he didn’t let the guy know what he thought of him with quite his usual enthusiasm. But he was pretty sure the guy got the idea.

“Hey!” The guy yelled into Tony’s face, shoving against Tony’s arm, as if to get his attention. Like his attention wasn’t pretty much riveted on the guy’s ugly, mustached mug. “You’re awake!”

Tony could do nothing but roll his eyes, which he did spectacularly, even in his current condition. The guy had an accent. Tony didn’t know accents well enough to know where he was from, but his first language was clearly Spanish. 

“Who the hell are you?” Mustache asked loudly, as though having three bullet holes somehow affected Tony’s hearing. Also as though he wasn’t shouting from about six inches away.

Tony tried to gather enough air to ask for help, but found that it was simply beyond him at the moment. He probably shouldn’t have used up so much energy on the eyeroll, but it had been a priority at the time, and he didn’t regret it. 

Mustache turned his head to shout at someone else for a change, maybe toward a door or something, “Hey, he’s awake!”

Tony closed his eyes, thinking that he really, really did not want to die here in the presence of this slack-jawed ignoramus. And he kind of felt like shit, which the guy’s yelling was not helping. 

“Need… doctor…”

Another man rushed into the room, looking down at Tony, who blinked his eyes briefly and then mustered all his resources to croak again, “Need… help…”

Tony heard the new guy smack Mustache before launching into a stream of Spanish that sounded pissed off. Or maybe that was just Tony being optimistic. Once Mustache moved aside and the new guy knelt next to Tony, it became apparent that the new guy was at least a little bit human. He dropped a metal first aid kit onto the floor next to him (Tony wasn’t a doctor, but he suspected that unless a complete operating suite and a surgical team was going to pop out of that box like those spring-loaded snakes in a can, that wasn’t going to do it) and tore Tony’s flannel shirt open.

Both men gasped, and Tony knew they were seeing the Arc Reactor shining through the T-shirt Tony was wearing. The new guy grabbed a scissors from the first aid kit and swiftly cut through the T-shirt before Tony could stop him. Which really pissed him off, because it was his Blue Öyster Cult one. He loved that T-shirt, dammit!

The guy seemed to think the fact that Tony had an Arc Reactor in his chest was Mustache’s fault, because he turned to Mustache and began to berate him in high-volume, staccato Spanish. Tony recognized some of the words as being ones not learned in Sunday school. Mustache started to defend himself, but was cut off abruptly by the new guy. Tony used a bit of his sparse energy to open his eyes. The guy wasn’t as ugly as Mustache, but his face was cratered with some serious pockmarks. Tony imagined that puberty had been hell on the poor dude, who looked to be in his thirties now. 

“Ambulance,” Tony managed to whisper. 

Pockface ignored him, or maybe didn’t hear him, given Tony’s inability to generate any volume. He used the tails of Tony’s flannel shirt to wipe the blood from Tony’s wounds, then tore open some gauze, which he pressed to the wounds. Tony would have screamed, if he could have. Instead, he passed out.

**************

Sam was having a very hard time concentrating on the mission. He and Anita were outside of Córdoba, in central Argentina, in the process of breaking into a food processing plant. He supposed he was interested and all, but this was definitely not his usual level of focus. Because according to the comms traffic, Tony Stark was in deep shit all alone in New Mexico. 

Sam and Anita both itched to simply blast their way into the factory building and to the machine. Instead, on Steve’s orders, they were trying to be stealthy so that they wouldn’t have to engage with the security guards that were known to be on site. Sam actually kind of _wanted_ to engage with them. He needed to hit something. Besides, this damn massive joint didn’t even make human food. It made pet food. Sam was pretty sure he didn’t want to know what went on in this building. 

Sam covered Anita as she utilized the small device with its stylish Stark Industries logo to disable the electronic door lock. They were going to have to take their chances with an alarm system. As far as Friday could tell, there wasn’t one. Not even video surveillance, just security guards. Sam knew it wasn’t actually possible for an A.I. to get distracted, but then, he often forgot that Friday wasn’t actually human. And she was definitely protective of Tony. He just hoped she wasn’t too focused on him when she was gathering intel about this place.

There was no way to know where in this giant factory the machine might be. There was nothing for it but to search, so Sam and Anita had entered through the most inconspicuous door they could find, which happened to open into a massive storage area. To Sam’s relief, it didn’t smell. Anita whispered to him that the labels on the boxes told her they were full of dry ingredients like rice and fillers. Weapons drawn, the two began a systematic exploration of the plant.

********

Bucky wasn’t happy. He’d never been to Papua New Guinea, and he wanted to see a place that still remained so exotic and mysterious, even in this insanely intrusive age. Instead, he and Joss were pushing their quinjet to its limits trying to get back to the U.S. as quickly as possible. It wasn’t likely that they would get to New Mexico in time to help rescue Tony, given that Natasha and Clint were just hours away now, and Steve was already on a quinjet of his own screaming over the Atlantic toward home. But as soon as Coulson had advised them that Tony was in trouble, Bucky was scorching the atmosphere to get to him.

He was worried. Coulson had relayed Friday’s report that Tony had been shot. According to Coulson, she was as frantic as an A.I. could get about his vital signs. Bucky had never hoped to miss out on the action before, but he did now. He prayed that, when they finally reached home, Tony was already safe and sound back in the Tower.

“Keep me posted,” Bucky asked Coulson over his headset.

“Will do.”

A cloud passed over Bucky’s face. “What are we gonna do about that machine in New Guinea?”

“I’m sending a team in. We know that machine is abandoned. We’ll take care of it.”

Bucky signed off and turned to Joss. “So much for our enjoyable flight home. Sorry about that.”

“You can make it up to me,” she smiled. “Besides, I haven’t flown anything supersonic since I left the Air Force. I hate the reason we’re rushing back, but that part’s all right.”

Bucky smiled back. Joss had a hell of a good attitude. That was good. If she was going to be his girl, the ability to just roll with it was a job requirement.

Huh. His girl. He liked the sound of that.

**************** 

Steve was in no mood to deal with delays when they reached New York. Director Coulson, expecting that would be the case, had arranged for a fully-fueled quinjet with all Steve’s gear to be waiting for them once they landed. He and Sharon literally ran across the tarmac from one jet to the other and, the minute they were on board, the pilots of the second quinjet took off. 

Not being the one flying the jet gave Steve the chance to suit up and concentrate fully on the reports from Clint and Natasha. They were on the ground, but they’d come by regular jet, and Red Stone dam was remote. It was going to take them some time to get there, even by chopper.

Meanwhile, Friday relayed Tony’s vital signs. Steve wasn’t sure how to feel when she reported that he was currently unconscious. Was that a good thing? At least he wasn’t experiencing pain at the moment. Or was it the harbinger of worse things to come? Steve was practically crawling out of his skin with anxiety. Although he’d always been awed by the speed quinjets could achieve, suddenly Mach 2 seemed unbearably slow to him.

****************

Tony had no way of knowing how long he’d been out, but he was conscious for a long time before he could open his eyes. He listened to Pockface and Mustache cussing eachother out in Spanish and wondered whether he should let them know he was awake. He realized he didn’t have much of a choice. It was really hard to breathe, and he felt dizzy even lying down on the hard floor of the dam control building. 

It seemed to take a ridiculous amount of effort to open his eyes. Even when he did, he couldn’t keep them open. He thought he must look like he was batting his eyes at Pockface, as many times as he tried to open them, only to have them close again. 

Once he could hold his eyes open, Tony looked around the room without turning his head or moving, both of which were beyond him at the moment. He was pretty sure the black thing in front of him was the machine, although he’d never seen one from this angle. Hey, good for him, he’d found it. Too bad he couldn’t even lift the screwdriver to open the first panel, let alone perform the rest of the steps to destroy it. He hurt. He couldn’t breathe. His weakness and dizziness told him he had probably lost a shitload of blood. Now that he thought about it, he was also shivering.

Tony finally managed to turn his head to the side and saw a door. He also saw long streaks of blood leading from that door across the floor from where Mustache had apparently dragged him in here. He closed his eyes again. If he wasn’t careful, Tony could actually let himself get a little scared here.

“Hey,” he croaked weakly.

Both men turned to him. They’d been standing between him and the machine as they argued. When Pockface heard Tony’s voice, he hastened to Tony’s side and knelt, waving a hand at the Arc Reactor. “Who are you? What the hell is that thing?”

“D-Dam inssssspec…” Tony had to stop to breathe. “ID. Pocket.”

“We found that. What are you doing here? Why were we not notified?”

“Surprise insssss-“

“Since when does the State inspect this dam? It’s federal property.”

Tony would have huffed in annoyance if he could have. For fuck’s sake, dude, can you not see I am in no shape for a confab? He closed his eyes and forced himself to whisper, “Help.”

“Not until you tell us what you’re doing here.”

“Bleeding…”

“Ha, ha, tough guy. The State doesn’t come inspect in the middle of the night. And you haven’t answered my question. What the fuck is that glowy thing in your chest?”

“Boss, your blood pressure is low, but your heart rate and your blood pressure both just jumped. What’s going on?”

Tony didn’t know why Friday asked such a dumb question. She was well aware that morons had that effect on him. The other reason he didn’t answer her question was in hopes that Pockface and Mustache would continue not to notice his comms. 

“Pa- Pace…maker. Shot me… Need help… You help, I forget. I die, s’murder…”

Pockface seemed to be considering Tony’s offer. He said nothing as he checked the makeshift bandages he’d placed on Tony’s gunshot wounds. The gauze was already saturated on the one in his right chest, which is the one Tony thought had collapsed his lung. The other one on the right hurt the most, but if Tony remembered his anatomy, was too high to have hit anything major. Still, it was bleeding almost as much as the one in his lung. The one in his lower left chest didn’t seem to be bleeding much anymore; the spot on the gauze was growing fairly slowly. He was pretty sure that one had broken a rib, though.

Pockface went into the first aid kit and took out the last of the gauze, squinting as he decided which of Tony’s bandages most needed reinforcement. Tony felt a drop of sweat roll off his forehead, onto his temple and into his hair, which was odd, since he was also shivering. Suddenly, through the haze of his mind, he realized that the wounds on his chest probably weren’t the big ones. Those were entrance wounds. Exit wounds were always bigger. And those were on his back. 

He thought it was weird that he could see his vision tunneling, then narrow to a point, even though his eyes had fallen shut again. He wished Friday would shut up with the “Boss! Boss!” in his ear so he could fall into the soft, welcoming blackness in peace.

****************

Sam pulled back just in time to avoid being spotted by the security guard lazily wandering down the hallway outside of the factory lunchroom he and Anita had found themselves in. Flattening themselves against the wall, they realized that there was nowhere for them to hide if the guard decided to come into the room. They stood, trying not to breathe, as they listened to his soft-soled shoes squeak intermittently on the tile floor.

To their relief, the guard passed by the double doors to the lunchroom and Sam was able to watch his retreating back through the glass panel in the door. The guard sauntered for a ways down the hall, then turned into another hallway. Sam gave him plenty of time to get further away before opening the door as slowly as he could. He and Anita slipped out into the hallway, and Sam eased the door shut again. They moved on.

They needed to catch a break here. Friday had located blueprints, but there was nothing in them that indicated where the machine might be. The blueprints helped in that Sam and Anita had a map of the factory’s layout, but that was about all they were good for. Even the electrical diagrams didn’t show anything anomalous, which meant that the diagrams filed with the authorities in Córdoba were not the ones that had been used to actually build the pet food plant. 

At the end of the hallway was a double metal door. That seemed promising. The problem was, it was locked, and the lock was a standard, heavy-duty key lock. Anita had a lock picking gun in a pouch on her utility belt, but using that was going to make noise. The better choice was for her to pick the lock using traditional lock picking tools, which would take longer, but might not attract attention. 

They almost made it. 

Anita had most of the tumblers pulled back and was just starting to relax when they heard footsteps. They looked at each other for a second, Sam nodded once, and Anita went back to work. Sam moved his gun hand so that it hung down low, concealing the Steyr behind his thigh. It didn’t occur to either of them that they’d just had an entire conversation in a split second, without words. 

The security guard began shouting at them in excited Spanish as soon as he saw them, but kept walking toward them. Sam was relieved. He’d been concerned that the guy might run, which would have meant Sam had to choose between staying with Anita or chasing the guard to prevent him calling for help. 

With the biggest smile he could fake, Sam stepped in front of Anita and put out his hand in a silly, but attention-getting, wave. He called out a greeting in cheerful English, hoping against hope the guy didn’t speak it, and was rewarded when the guard’s steps stuttered a bit and he stopped shouting. The poor guy actually tipped his head a little, like a dog, as if that would help him understand Sam. 

“Dude, I’m so glad to see you. Do you speak English?”

The Guard knew that phrase, anyway, and shrugged. “No,” he answered, then realized he should be more concerned about this guy wearing all black and holding a hand behind him.

It was too late. Sam was now less than five feet from him and had pulled the Steyr around to aim at the security guard before he could do anything.

“Come with me,” Sam said in Spanish, and signaled for the guard to walk ahead of him. As the guard passed him and Sam turned toward Anita, she finished picking the lock and the metal door popped open. 

She stood up, smiling. To the security guard, she said cheerily, “Hi. Nice to meet you. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re actually glad to see you, because we could use your help. But first, let’s see what’s behind door number one.”

The room was massive. Even with only every fourth light fixture illuminated, the stainless steel machinery and conveyor system gleamed in the all-white room. 

“Huh,” Anita said, glancing at Sam. She turned back to the security guard. “There’s a machine here. Black, shaped like the pyramids at Chichen Itza. Glows green. You know it?”

“What are you talking about? Chichen Itza?” The guard looked more confused than anything, but became slightly more alarmed as Sam lifted the guard’s radio from his belt. Fortunately, the guy wasn’t armed, which Sam hoped meant that none of the other guards were, either. 

“You got a passkey?” Sam asked, and Anita translated for him.

With shaking hands, the guard pulled a key ring from his pocket and picked out the right key, then handed it to Anita. 

“Okay,” she said, smiling. “You sure you don’t know of any big black machine that glows green? Because my boyfriend here is kind of in a hurry. It’d sure help us out if you knew what we were talking about.”

“Lady, what the… There’s nothing like that here. They make cat food-“

“OK. Fine. Then tell me what rooms you’re not allowed to go into.”

“None! We don’t go into the offices, but we check the doors, and we each have routes we walk…”

Sam moved until he was within the guard’s line of sight and began messing with his Steyr, aiming it at imaginary targets and jerking it up slightly as though firing it. He almost made a “pew-pew-pew” sound, but realized in time that would be far more lame than scary. 

The guard’s eyes widened and he spoke quickly in his growing agitation. “I don’t know! There’s no… Wait. There’s a door. I always wondered where it went, but it has a keypad thingie. I don’t know the combination.”

“Show us.”

Sam followed as Anita walked next to the security guard. He was worried as hell about Tony, but it didn’t stop him from appreciating the way Anita’s hips swayed when she walked. Or the way she already had the guard more afraid of her than he was of Sam, who was actually the one brandishing a gun.

*************

Clint and Natasha had landed at a distance and come in to the dam complex on foot, working their way closer and closer until they were on their bellies in a depression in the rock about two hundred yards out from the control building. They’d been observing the dam complex and strategizing with Steve when the day shift arrived. Once that happened, things went to shit fast.

The first two day shift workers had apparently carpooled, and went in together. About ten minutes later, another dusty pickup truck pulled into the complex and a third man entered the building, followed quickly by a fourth. With the enhanced hearing his Stark hearing aids gave him, Clint noticed the shouting as soon as it began. Natasha didn’t need any tech to hear the gunshots that followed about five minutes later.

There was some good news. Once Clint and Natasha ran into the building, weapons ready, there was really no reason Steve’s quinjet couldn’t just land in the open area behind the complex when it arrived. Stealth was no longer possible or useful now. The gunmen also let the day shift workers leave unharmed, so there was that. Apparently, not all the dam workers knew about the machine.

But Pockface wasn’t stupid. He kept a gun on Tony and threatened to shoot him in the head this time. Clint and Natasha had no choice but to surrender their weapons. So now three Avengers were being held hostage, and none of them could help Tony. It was clear even from across the machine room that he was in deep, deep trouble. He was pale grey and sweaty, breathing shallowly, and not reacting even when Pockface shoved his gun against Tony’s temple to finally get Clint and Natasha to disarm and stand against a wall.

“I knew this guy was no dam inspector!” Mustache cried. “This is the Hawkeye and the Black Widow! That means he’s fuckin’ Tony Stark, man! That’s the Ironman!”

“It’s just ‘Ironman’, dude.” It kind of sounded to Clint like Mustache was having a fanboy moment. That kind of stupidity did not bode well for this situation.

“Look,” Natasha tried, “You’re right. OK? That is Tony Stark. You know what that means? You save him, you’re heroes. Probably rich, he’s generous as hell to people who help him. But he dies? You’re the assholes who killed Ironman. You really want the rain of shit that’ll bring down on you?” 

“Shut the fuck up!” Pockface screamed. He was pacing up and down the length of Tony’s body where it lay on the floor, pulling at his own hair and muttering to himself in pressured Spanish. He had clearly not known who his captives were.

“I can see you’re trying to find a way out of this. Let us help you,” Natasha offered, speaking Spanish now, too.

Pockface looked up at her, and she thought she might have been about to get a dialogue going. Except that, at that moment, Steve’s plane became audible. It was not the sound of a normal airplane, and was already unmistakably close, which instantly sent Pockface into a full-on panic. He screamed to Mustache to go check out the sound and held his shaking gun on Clint and Natasha. She tried, once, to continue the conversation, but he just brandished the gun and shrieked at her to shut up.

********************

Sam and Anita didn’t look at one another as the security guard, whose name was Alfonso, led them around a corner to a dead end hallway. The corridor was out of the way, tucked back behind a massive cold storage unit whose contents Sam was trying very hard not to contemplate, given that they made pet food here. As the guard had said, the doorway at the end, which was nondescript with paint beginning to flake off of it, had a keypad next to it. It also had a black bubble above it, of the kind that housed surveillance cameras. Sam glanced up at it and realized that, although it made him nervous, there was probably nobody monitoring the view from that camera anymore. At least he hoped not.

Anita used the same Starktech gizmo she’d used before to disable the electronic lock. This time, however, when the door opened, an alarm sounded, shrill and loud in the near-empty factory. Sam grabbed security guard Alfonso by the scruff of his neck and hurled him through the door, slamming it as soon as Anita had slipped inside. 

“Fuck!” Sam hissed. “What’s that alarm? Who’s coming?”

Anita quickly translated and Alfonso began to babble agitatedly. 

“He doesn’t know,” Anita told Sam. “He says he’s never heard that alarm before. He thinks the other guards will come down here to check it out.”

“Can he radio them, tell them it’s all good?”

Anita asked Alfonso the question, but Sam almost didn’t listen to the answer. Alfonso was too strung out now. No one would believe him if he said everything was under control. The best they could do now was to hope that Alfonso was telling the truth about not knowing what that alarm was. That should mean none of the other guards did, either. If there was no indication where the alarm was coming from, like a light outside the door to this room, maybe they’d have to spend time looking for the source…

Sam began frantically searching the room to see if he could find a control panel or something where he might be able to turn the alarm off.

************

As it turned out, Pockface didn’t need Mustache to tell him that the plane was coming for them. Although the machine room had no windows, they could all hear the quinjet engines change pitch as it went into hover and then get louder as it descended. Pockface spat another string of obscenities. 

“You know who that is, right?” Natasha asked calmly.

Pockface’s response was another expletive. Clint wanted to swear, too, because he really wished he spoke Spanish right now. He wondered briefly whether the crazed gunman currently holding them hostage would let him pull out his phone so he could use Google Translate to follow along. Probably not.

“You know that’s Captain America,” Natasha continued, voice low and soothing. “You do not wanna mess with him. Lower your weapon so we can tell him not to kill you.”

Pockface knelt next to Tony then, and aimed his gun at Tony’s ashen face. Mustache came running down the hall and into the room, eyes wide and breath heaving. 

“That plane landed!”

“I can hear that, idiot!” Pockface hissed. Why aren’t you out there making sure no one can get out without being shot?”

“Man, fuck that! It’s gotta be more fuckin’ Avengers! I don’ wanna die, man!”

“Shut up! Just cover those two, you asshole, and let me think!” 

There were a lot of problems here. One of the biggest was that there were two doors to the machine room. They couldn’t cover both of them and the hostages, too. Fuck Arias! Why the hell did he have to get his ass captured? Come to think of it, Pockface wondered, why the hell had he thought he should continue to guard the damn machine, anyway? What had he thought he’d gain? 

He was mired in that thought when the door to his left sort of… disintegrated. How the hell had Captain America moved so fast? Mustache started to whimper.

That’s when Pockface started to get truly desperate.

“Captain America!” He screamed. “Show yourself! If you don’t show yourself right now I’m going to put a bullet in Ironman’s skull!”

There was a noise from the door to the right and a fully-suited Captain America was suddenly filling the doorway, all shoulders and shield. Pockface thought he looked seriously pissed.

“Throw your shield down,” Pockface cried. “And don’t try anything. You can’t hit both of us with it, so you try to throw it, one of your friends dies.”

Steve stood still for a moment, not moving so much as his eyes, then lowered his shield and set it on the floor. He stepped oh-so-slowly past it, into the room and toward Pockface.

“That’s far enough! Don’t –“

At that moment, a loud thud sounded behind Pockface as the second door exploded. Steve dived for Pockface’s feet, but Pockface was already jumping away from the noise of the explosion. Although Mustache screamed like a little girl, both he and Pockface somehow managed to keep enough of their wits to hold onto their weapons. But at least Steve was now on the floor next to Tony, although Pockface could now hold his gun on both of them at the same time.

Tony’s eyes opened then. “Capsicle?” He whispered.

Steve reached out and placed a hand on Tony’s arm. “Relax, Tony. I got this.”

Looking at the gun Pockface aimed at them, and the one Mustache aimed at Clint and Natasha, Tony actually managed a slight movement of his lips. Although they had a terrifying bluish tinge to them now, Steve could see that it was an attempt at a mocking grin.

“See that,” Tony managed, wincing as a spasm of pain hit him.

Steve turned back to Pockface, twisting to get to his knees between Pockface and Tony. “You gotta get him some help. Look at him. He’s dying!”

“Can’t do that,” Pockface replied, his expression and the agitation in his voice terrifying evidence of how close he was to losing it. “Maybe I put him out of his misery.”

“No!” Steve cried, putting out a hand as though to stop a bullet from reaching Tony.

“Move aside, Captain America.” Pockface gestured with his gun. “Get over there with the others.”

Everyone in the room could see something in Steve change. He straightened up, reaching back to put a hand on Tony’s abdomen. His voice was suddenly made of granite as he growled, “I’m not leaving him.”

“I will kill you!” Pockmark shrieked.

“You’re gonna have to, because I’m staying right here with him. I’m not gonna let you hurt him any more.”

“I’ll shoot you! Don’t think I won’t!”

Steve looked behind him at Tony’s ashen, pain-stricken face. Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds before Steve turned back to Pockface.

“I believe you. I’m willing to take that bullet. Your move.”

Pockface scowled, hissing a string of words Steve didn’t understand, but was pretty sure were entirely foul.

And then he fired. Steve went down, somehow managing to twist so that he fell across Tony’s body with his arms covering Tony’s head protectively.

****************

Sam and Anita had been so focused on the alarm and keeping their eyes on Alfonso that it took a moment for it to register with Sam. Their final machine was right here, in this room. Sam turned to Anita.

“Look,” he said.

“Kinda hard to miss, Sam.”

“You think we should worry about the alarm? Or should we just take it out?”

“It takes almost half an hour. No way the other guards don’t come in that kind of time.”

“Nah,” Sam grinned, pulling a grenade from his tac belt. “It don’t have to take half an hour.”

“You sure?” Anita asked, looking skeptical.

“What, you think we shouldn’t?”

“No, I think we should. But they tell me I’m impulsive and reckless, so…”

Sam actually laughed. 

It still took ten minutes to dislodge the orb from the machine, in which time at least some of the other guards had gathered outside the door to the machine room. Sam could hear them out there, and he figured he could guess what they were saying. Once Anita had the orb in a pocket of her tac pants, she pulled Alfonso with her to stand next to the door. Sam unlatched a large piece of the cowling covering the machine and looked inside, nodding with satisfaction. 

“Works,” he said, then came to stand next to Anita and a very confused and frightened Alfonso. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Anita echoed, and put her hand on the doorknob.

Sam lifted the grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it in a beautiful underhand right into the open cowling on the machine. Before it had even landed, when it was clear the throw had been true, Anita tore the door open and the three of them ran, shouting, right past four very surprised security guards. 

The guards may have been surprised, but they recognized people fleeing for their lives, and decided to follow. Especially since all three of those running were yelling, “Grenade!”

Sam was kind of bummed that they were already around a corner when he heard the explosion. It wasn’t nearly as much fun to blow shit up if you couldn’t stick around to watch.

Once they hit the doors to the outside, the security guards slowed and turned around to look at the smoke beginning to trail out from where they’d just exited. Sam and Anita kept right on running. It wasn’t until they were over a hundred yards away that Alfonso noticed they hadn’t stopped. 

By then, it was too late. Sam had already activated the EXO-7 and Anita was wrapping herself around him. The security guards could only watch as whoever the hell those two had been simply rose into the sky and flew away. 

Alfonso didn’t know what the fuck he was supposed to tell his boss. 

*****************

When Pockface fired, neither Natasha nor Clint took the time to react verbally. Before Steve stopped moving, Clint had swept an arrow from his quiver. In the same move, he shoved it forcefully through Mustache’s earhole. The sound of thin skullbone crunching and the arrow squelching through Mustache’s brain, this close up, was actually kind of gnarly. Which was why Clint really preferred to use his bow for this kind of thing.

Natasha was across the room with Pockface’s neck in both hands and a knee in his groin before Pockface had even properly begun to react to the fact that he’d just shot Captain America. When Pockmark hit the ground in the fetal position, already cradling his balls, she calmly put a foot on his shoulder and rolled him over, soundlessly sliding the knife neither of the gunmen had thought to check for between Pockmark’s ribs. Pockmark’s screeching ceased instantly, and Natasha was already giving instructions to Friday to remote pilot the helicopter in.

Clint stepped up to Natasha’s side and looked down at Steve and Tony. “Stark, we got. But Cap? He’s gotta weigh a ton. Gonna be rough getting him onto the chopper.”

Tony moaned and murmured something, and, to everyone’s surprise, Steve pushed himself up to a sitting position with a loud grunt. His hand went to his left upper chest, closer to his shoulder than his heart. Although he wasn’t mortally wounded, blood was already soaking his suit and oozing through his fingers.

“I can walk,” he forced out through teeth clenched against the pain.

“Steve!” Natasha was instantly on her knees beside him, while Clint knelt next to Tony, who was still mumbling.

As Sharon came streaking into the room toward Steve, Clint put his head down toward Tony. He watched Tony’s lips closely and tipped his ear to hear him better, although his comms earpiece included a top of the line hearing aid and didn’t really need the proximity.

“Suit..” Tony gasped. “Friday…”

With that, Tony’s eyes rolled back in his head and he lost consciousness. Clint startled, but could see that Tony was still breathing. Clint touched his earpiece. “Friday-“

“On it. Powering the suit up now. It’ll be there momentarily.”

“Hurry!” Clint cried.

“I’m not going to let the Boss down. But I am also monitoring his condition and flying a helicopter right now, in addition to my other responsibilities, so if you would kindly-”

“All right, all right. Sorry.”


	32. Fuckin' Hell, Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they all lived happily ever after.  
> The End.

“The doctors say you’ll make a full recovery, but it’s going to take a while.”

“You don’t sound too happy about that,” Tony replied carefully. He knew when Pepper was pissed.

And Pepper was pissed right now.

“I’m not. That’s a long time to have to wait before I can kill you.”

“Now, see-“

“You know what, Tony? Don’t talk. Nothing you can say will make what you did any less insanely reckless. And if you tell me you love me, I can and will throw you out that window. If you loved me, you would think about what it would do to me to learn you’ve been shot three times in the chest.”

“Getting shot wasn’t in the plan-“

“ _In the chest_ , Tony.” She skewered him with her scowl.

“Sorry, Pep,” he murmured quietly.

Something in Tony’s voice made Pepper look a little closer at his face.

“I’m sorry, Pepper. Truly.”

The moist sincerity in his deep brown eyes struck her. He still looked scared. Had since he’d been shot, she imagined. Certainly since he’d been stable enough to be flown back to New York and the medical floor of his Tower. He also looked sorry, and exhausted, and vulnerable. She knew that she was the only person in the world he ever let see that side of him, and it tore at her heart. There wasn’t any thought or volition, only movement as she flew to his side to throw herself into the arms he held open.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

She took a moment to choke down her sob before whispering back, “I love you. I love you so much. Please don’t leave me…”

“I won’t. I’m not. Shhhhhhhhh.” Tony stroked her hair as she cried. He didn’t bother about his own tears.

He’d really cut it too close this time. 

  
  


In the room next door, Steve was cradling Sharon in his good arm as she snuggled next to him in his hospital bed. She wasn’t defending him, though. She was just letting Bucky shout at him and call him a dumbass about ninety-seven different ways as he paced back and forth at the end of Steve’s bed. She was even laughing sometimes, which Steve didn’t think was necessary. 

Of course, he’d known this was coming, and he knew Bucky wasn’t actually angry. This was just the way Bucky needed to bleed all the residual fear out of his system. After the way Steve had acted following the quinjet crash, Steve supposed, it was also Bucky’s turn. 

But he was kinda outdoing himself at the moment.

“So you fucking _tell_ the guy to shoot you? What in the jumped-up hell is the matter with you, Steve? I gotta be with you every fucking minute to keep you from doin’ this kinda shit?”

“Sorry, Buck, I didn’t-“

“I’m a hundred years old, punk, my heart can’t take this anymore. Hell, you’re a hundred, too, which means you shoulda grown out of your idiot phase a few decades ago now!” 

“Look, Tony was-“

“You know how close that bullet was to your heart? Major blood vessels? I got news for you, pal, the serum didn’t make you bulletproof. You can still bleed out. You been to war, you’ve seen how fast that can happen. _Fuckin’ hell_ , Steve!”

“Bucky, stop.”

“No! I’m gonna bust your chops, and you’re gonna lay there and take it, because you do this every time! Every fuckin’ time, you gotta go wadin’ into trouble until you’re in it up to your eyeballs, you dumb knucklehead. You go barrelin’ into a room and take on a coupla gorillas with guns, and you tell one of ‘em to shoot you? _I’m_ gonna fuckin’ shoot you just so I don’t gotta deal with this crap anymore!”

Steve couldn’t help it. He started to smile. He knew that was just gonna make Bucky madder, but he simply couldn’t keep it in. It was so good to have Bucky back. So good. It ached, how warm and familiar and _right_ this felt. 

“If that’s a smile… Sharon, you’re gonna hafta move, because I’m gonna slug him.”

Sharon believed him. So much so, that she got up from the bed.

“No, Sharon, we were comfortable-“ Steve complained, but Bucky was already by his side, fist cocked and eyes full of fire.

He wasn’t really going to hit Steve. Probably.

What Bucky did instead was bend down and gather Steve’s massive shoulders in his arms, pulling him up from his pillow until Bucky was crushing Steve to his chest. Which hurt like a bitch.

“Bucky, _ouch_! Watch it!”

“Shut up, you big baby. You did it to me and I had broken ribs, which hurts way worse and you know it,” Bucky’s voice rumbled in his chest against Steve’s ear. 

For a minute, Bucky just squeezed Steve, while Steve tried to breathe through the pain. 

“ _Fuckin’ hell_ , Stevie,” Bucky grumbled, and Steve knew the mandatory ass-chewing was about over. Bucky had finally yelled himself out.  
  


*****************  
  


Tony Stark knew how to throw a party. Everyone knew that. What everyone _didn’t_ know is that, closet romantic that he was, he also knew how to throw a wedding. Which was to say, let Pepper do it. Tony knew his limitations. 

Okay, he didn’t, but he knew this one.

The Avengers’ upstate Compound was set amidst a few acres of lush land, beautifully maintained. There was an outdoor area that got used frequently when the weather was nice, like today, which featured a brand-new gazebo of rustic-looking local wood. It was decked out in tulle and flowers, lit softly and well by a thousand twinkle lights and additional, indirect lights. Pepper said the lighting for the event had been designed by the best team she could hire. She also said it cost Tony dearly, but she thought it was worth it.

Tony didn’t know anything about any of that, he just knew that he could see and hear the minister just fine, and he’d never seen Banner… _glow_ like that. Tony smirked. _Poor fuck’s got it bad._ But then he looked at Catherine, and he couldn’t really blame Bruce. She was stunning. And she sure seemed to be head over heels for Banner. 

He pulled his right arm in its fashionable black sling closer to his side and twisted to look around. Damn, when did the Avengers all get so paired off? He supposed he shouldn’t feel the slight sense of superiority he did, because Pepper was sitting right next to him, and he was clinging pretty tightly to her hand at the moment. 

Natasha surprised him. There was something about her lately. She was no less dry and supercilious, no softer or more emotional, just… different. Tony couldn’t have explained how her public interaction with Clint had changed, but it had. In some indefinable way, although they weren’t given to public displays of affection, it was obvious they were a couple. They hadn’t denied it when Tony had finally asked about it during a team dinner, but they also hadn’t volunteered any information. Tony knew Clint, though. He was no doubt dying to talk about it. He was just forbidden to, at least in public. Tony made a promise to himself that he would corner Clint later on tonight and get him drunk. Make him spill. Meanwhile, Clint sat looking damn handsome, Tony had to admit, in his suit, next to Natasha, who was somehow managing to radiate both deep satisfaction and hair-trigger ferocity at the same time. Neat trick, that. 

  
  


There were fewer than fifty people sitting in the chairs set up in front of the gazebo, with their silk covers in the soft light green Catherine had insisted on including in the wedding color scheme. She swore it wasn’t a joke, just an acknowledgement that she meant it when she vowed “For better or worse.” Pepper had mixed it with a delicate pink and cream, and the setting was truly spectacular, but in a quiet way that fit the couple. It was definitely overwhelmingly romantic.

The combination of such a small number of guests, with the overall taste and beauty of the event, somehow made it more sumptuous. Bruce and Catherine didn’t care about that, they just wanted their wedding to be intimate. They wanted to share it with those they loved and cared for, while keeping their privacy from the merely curious. Neither of them denied the additional fact that keeping the event small meant it could happen more quickly. They’d waited long enough for the marriage that had been inevitable since their mutual friend Andris, who was here tonight, had goaded a grad student into pitting them against one another in a seminar in Munich.

  
  


Sam had trouble appreciating the decor, however, because all he could see was Anita. Her floor-length, halter-topped gown was entirely appropriate even as it showed a lot of skin, the flowy fabric a light shade of teal that made all that skin glow. She had complimented the fit of his suit more than once, but he felt invisible next to her, as beautiful as she looked. That was fine by Sam. All he wanted to do was be near her, focusing on her long, toned arms and watching her appreciate the romance of the evening, waiting for the next time she would smile at him. 

  
  


The ceremony was fairly brief, and beautiful, and to no one’s surprise, Steve cried the most. Bucky was merciless about it, but he was the only one who could get away with that. Sharon found it adorable. 

Sharon found pretty much everything about Steve adorable. She hadn’t yelled at him – much – for getting shot. She’d just said about a thousand prayers of thanks that it wasn’t life-threatening, and that the serum allowed him to heal so quickly. This was Steve. This was the man she loved completely and forever, and he also happened to be Captain America, which was a dangerous job. So be it. She would just pray a lot and make sure he knew, every moment, how much she loved him.

When the sunset ceremony was over, there was nothing left to do but make sure to say a few polite words to the few guests – close friends and family members – who weren’t either Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. That done, Steve took Sharon by the hand and leaned over to whisper, “You wanna go for a walk?”

Like Sharon would say no to a man who looked like that in a blue suit. 

Steve grabbed two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to Sharon as they meandered along a flagstone path. Sharon hadn’t spent any time here at the Compound, so she was happily surprised when the path led past the ornamental shrubbery into a small, unexpected outdoor seating area. It was surrounded by fairly tall flowering shrubs that Sharon didn’t know the name of, which made it a private little oasis. For Bruce and Catherine’s wedding, burning torches had been set at each corner, giving the space a warm, magical glow. They sat down close together on a stone bench and took a few sips of their champagne.

“You know, I was born in 1918,” Steve noted.

Sharon blinked and shook her head in wonder. “I know. Crazy.”

“Yeah. It was a different time then, in a lot of ways.”

Sharon nodded, her eyebrows bunching just a little. _Where was he going with this_?  
“I’ve tried to catch up.”

“You’ve done an amazing job. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for you.”

“But there’s something I got wrong.”

“Oh?”

Steve took another sip and leaned his head a little closer to Sharon’s so he could look in her eyes. “Some things are fashion. Some things are… I don’t know… progress, let’s say. And I get that people have different beliefs and values. I also get that some of the beliefs and values we used to have when I was a kid were wrong. Unfair. Hurtful, even.”

Sharon nodded, just waiting for him to get to the point.

“But some weren’t. And I think I made a mistake, trying to be modern. In fact, I know I did. And I know you won’t see it this way, but I disrespected you, and I’m sorry.”

“Steve, what are you…?”

“I love you, Sharon. I’m always gonna love you, and I know that. You’re so much smarter than me, and wiser, and you’re completely successful in your own right. I’m so proud to be with you. Plus, you’re beautiful and sexy, and…”

Steve set down his champagne and pulled something from his pocket as he knelt on the lush grass before Sharon.

“Steve-“ she gulped.

“I love you,” he repeated, taking Sharon’s left hand in his. He lifted it in his right and, with his left, showed her a simple gold ring with a single diamond that sparkled in the light of the torches. He lowered it until he held it just off the end of her left ring finger. “I love you, Sharon, and I don’t just want to live with you, like being together is just convenient, or temporary. I want to marry you. I want us to be a family. I want to make you my wife so that you, and everyone else, will know how much you mean to me. How much I value you. Sharon Carter, will you be my wife?”

Sharon’s breathy, “Yes!” was barely audible against the soft backdrop of music and voices coming from the wedding reception. 

Steve took his time, carefully setting the ring on Sharon’s finger. She noticed that it fit perfectly, and wondered how many professional spies had been involved in making that happen. Then Steve looked up again, the tears welling in his eyes a match for the few spilling down her cheeks. When he kissed her, he cradled her face in his hands, like something precious and infinitely delicate. 

It was a long time before she’d finished telling him how much she loved him, and how happy she planned to make him.

  
  


Pepper had arranged for a small dance floor to be set up in front of the gazebo, where the chairs had been for the ceremony. While a state-of-the-art soundsystem had played appropriate music through the ceremony and wove a quiet, elegant spell throughout the sit-down dinner that followed, now a live band was set up in the gazebo. Sam and Anita had been on the dance floor since the moment Bruce and Catherine invited everyone to join them while they had their first dance. 

Although he had no illusions that anyone would be watching them raptly, the way everyone was watching Sam and Anita, Clint didn’t want them to. He wanted to dance with Natasha, close and slow, and maybe whisper some sweet nothings to her from time to time. 

They’d danced together before, of course, but not since they’d declared themselves a couple, officially and permanently. Clint found himself fighting his emotions, lest he outdo Steve’s display during the ceremony. The woman he held in his arms felt entirely different from the Natasha he’d danced with a hundred other times in the presence of the Avengers. This Natasha held him close. She smiled into his eyes and nuzzled his jaw. She leaned into him, melting her body to his and closing her eyes. There was nothing vulgar or conspicuous about it, although he was sure that they held each other and interacted like lovers, whereas before they had danced as close friends. But the subtle change, for Clint Barton, was everything.

“Stick a fork in me,” he murmured into Natasha’s ear as he guided her gracefully through a turn.

“Such a strange expression.”

“Mmmmm. But it fits. Me. Now. I can’t think of a single thing I want. I am completely content in this moment.”

“You have a low bar for contentment, Barton.”

“No,” he corrected her. “I don’t.”

He heard and felt, rather than saw, Natasha smile. When he felt her pull him just a little bit closer, Clint realized that he _could_ , in fact, be happier than he’d been a second before. 

“I can think of some things _I_ want,” Natasha said during the next song, tipping up her head to whisper some of them in his ear. 

“I don’t think I should do that to you in front of Catherine’s mom. She’s gotta be at least eighty.”

“I agree. But I want it now.”

“It’s Bruce and Catherine’s wedding, Tasha. We can’t leave this early.”

“We’ll come back. After. And if you can’t disappear without anyone noticing, Barton, I’m going to start questioning your spy skills.”

“Ooh. Gauntlet thrown.”

“Yes.” She backed a step or two away from him and, with a smolder, said, “Don’t keep me waiting.”

With that, somehow, she disappeared into a very small crowd.

  
  


Sam and Anita hadn’t spoken much about the future. They hadn’t had much time. But since returning from Argentina, they’d learned of Steve’s plan to create a second Avengers base on the grounds of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in D.C. Their future seemed to have sort of taken care of itself. 

“Barnes has a place in D.C. already, says there’s plenty of room if I want to live there, too. I might take him up on that, at least for a while. It’s been a while since I lived in D.C.”

Anita wasn’t able to respond right away, because this was the part of the dance where Sam held her hand over her head while she did a series of complicated twirls around him. When she snapped back into his arms, their chests colliding solidly, she was smiling. 

“Well, maybe now’s the time to tell you what Coulson said to me while we were talking earlier.”

“Yeah? Something happen?”

“He’s promoting me. I’ll still be in the field on special assignments, but I’ll be training more.” She looked flirtatiously up at him through her eyelashes. “And part of my job will be ‘liaising’ with the Avengers.”

“Oh, you know how I like to ‘liaise’,” Sam grinned.

“And you’re very, very good at it.”

Anita watched appreciatively as Sam executed some intricate steps that took them across the whole dance floor. Which was tiny, but it was still an impressive display of his grace and his fine physique. “Damn, Master Sergeant,” she breathed.

“You like that, huh? Plenty more where that came from.”

“Good. Because you and me, we’re gonna be doing a lot of dancing.”

Sam’s face was alight as he replied, “I can’t tell you how much I like the sound of that.”

With that, he tightened his arm around her waist and led her through smart, brisk turns that caused her gown to billow out around their legs, to the delight of several onlookers.

  
  


Bucky had been covering for Steve for a while now. He knew, of course, what was happening. Hell, he’d helped Steve plan what he was gonna say. So every time someone asked where Steve was, Bucky made sure to tell them he had something he needed to do, and would be back soon. He wasn’t sure why he felt relieved when he saw Steve and Sharon, arm in arm and looking like they were walking a few feet off the ground. He’d told Steve a hundred times how stupid it was to even consider that she’d say no. But it was nice to know he’d been right. _Huh. Little Stevie, marryin’ a bombshell like Sharon. How about that?_

He gave them both a smile big enough to convey his congratulations, then decided to go seek his own bombshell. He knew that Steve and Sharon wouldn’t announce their engagement tonight. Tonight was about Bruce and Catherine.

Which, incidentally, was who Joss was talking to when he stepped up next to her and handed her a glass of champagne. He himself had switched to beer after the toasts were over. He moved the bottle to his metal hand and interlaced his flesh fingers with Joss’s.

“It was perfect. It’s all perfect. I think this might be my favorite wedding I’ve ever been to,” Joss was saying.

“It’s definitely mine,” Bruce agreed, mooning at his new wife who, Bucky noticed with a grin, mooned right back.

“Ugh. If I wanted that much sweetness, I’d have another piece of cake.”

Neither Bruce nor Catherine bothered to respond to Bucky’s gentle gibe other than to laugh happily. At that moment, a table full of Catherine’s relatives called them over. “Bride and Groom duties,” Catherine apologized, and led a starry-eyed Bruce over to the table.

Joss turned to Bucky, standing very close in the soft glow from the thousands of twinkle lights woven through every tree and plant big enough to support the weight.

“Have I told you how gorgeous you look in that suit?” She asked, smiling up at him.

“Three times now. But it’s nice to hear, especially coming from you, when you look like that.”

Bucky tilted his face toward hers and kissed Joss softly, and for a long time.

“Will you dance with me?” He asked.

“Every time you ask,” she responded, and given the look on her face, he believed her. She looked as moony as the newly-married couple. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder whether he looked like that, too. Truth to tell, he kinda hoped he did, so Joss would know how he felt.

Modern music wasn’t the same, and people didn’t learn to dance anymore, but Bucky could make the music work, and he was so good at leading that Joss was becoming a pretty good partner. Bucky had also spent a few very romantic evenings giving her dance lessons. Not a few of the wedding guests watched the two of them on the tiny dance floor, oblivious of anything beyond the music and each other. Steve smiled as he caught sight of them. People watching Bucky own a dance floor was nothing new for Steve.

Joss eventually decided it was time for a break, although Bucky could have gone on forever. He wasn’t sure whether that was a dancing thing or a supersoldier thing, though, so he didn’t mention it. He simply squired Joss to a table as far from other people as he could, and went to get them drinks. When he returned, she had a thoughtful look on her face. 

“Uh-oh. What’d I do?” He asked, purposely using that grin he’d been told was irresistible enough to get him out of anything.

“It’s nothing bad. I don’t think. I’m not really sure, actually, because I don’t really know what it means. I’ve been wondering whether now is the time to talk about it.”

“Ah. That.”

Joss nodded as she sipped from her beer bottle. “Bucky, you bought the row house I live in.”

“Uh-huh. I did.”

“But why?”

“Because I love it. You know how much I like that house. I also happen to have a stupid amount of money, which I never spend. I’m gonna have to spend a lot of time in D.C. now that the Avengers are gonna have a permanent base there, so I need a place to stay. So that’s that. Oh, and by the way? You don’t have to pay rent anymore.”

Joss frowned. “I don’t know how I feel about being a kept woman.”

“Personally, I feel great about it, but if you object, then fine, pay rent. But I’m not letting you get rid of the historical aspects of the building.” Bucky suddenly sat up a little straighter and scrunched his eyebrows together. “Wait. That building’s not much older than me. Did I just call myself historical?”

“Sweetie, you’re practically an artifact. It’s part of what makes you, you.”

Bucky took Joss’s hand and they knitted their fingers together on the table. “Once you go centenarian, you never go back.”

“Pretty sure that’s true. At least for me.”

“Do I need to keep you away from nursing homes?”

Joss almost choked on a swallow of beer laughing at that. “Well, I like a pretty specific type of centenarian.”

“Just need to keep you away from Steve, then, huh?”

“Never been much for blonds,” she answered, leaning toward Bucky with a significant look. “I have a thing for guys with dark hair.”

“Wow. That _is_ specific.”

“Mmmmm. Probably explains my sparse dating history.”

“Yeah, not a lot of hundred-year-old guys with dark hair and guns running around,” Bucky agreed thoughtfully, not entirely successful in smothering his grin.

“Don’t forget knives.”

“Those, too. You better stick with me, Joss. Your dating pool is… wow. Small.”

She cocked her eyebrow at him. “Are you asking me to go steady?”

“I think that was the fifties,” he answered, and brought her hand to his lips. Bucky kept his face serious as he said, “Me, I’m askin’ you to be my best girl. Whaddaya say? Will you?”

“Yes. Oh, hell, yes!” Joss cried, and Bucky let out a little yelp when she threw herself into his lap.

  
  


Tony had been putting off this moment all night. It didn’t actually have to happen tonight, but Tony was feeling like tonight was a night of getting things resolved. Bruce and Catherine were finally married, and he was pretty sure Cap and Sharon were engaged. Steve had sought Tony’s advice about diamonds earlier in the week, and Tony sincerely doubted Cap was thinking of getting his ear pierced. Besides, Tony had seen the ring on Sharon’s finger and the way she and Steve were both beaming joy all over the place like wifi. It felt like the right time. And Tony was just buzzed enough.

He strolled around the outdoor area, checking out Sam and Anita showing some seriously impressive moves on the dance floor and saying hello to everyone who caught his eye as he walked among the tables. He purposely avoided catching Bruce’s eye, because he really didn’t want to be thanked again for giving them this wedding. It made him uncomfortable, for one thing. And for another, Tony was just as happy about Bruce getting married as Bruce was, because it meant he wouldn’t be haunting the tower, moping around like Eeyore off his meds anymore. When he finally reached Steve, standing at the edge of the lit area watching Sharon dance with Bucky, Tony just stood next to him, sipping excellent whiskey and trying to find his voice.

“How’s the chest?” Steve finally asked.

“Eh,” Tony shrugged. “Got another week in the sling, but I’m doing physical therapy now. In a pool, which I kind of don’t think is a real thing, but it’s nice.”

“It’s a real thing, Tony.”

“Maybe. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, you know. Everything.”

Steve made a questioning hum.

“You, um, took a bullet for me.”

“Always said I would.”

“Yeah, well, I always say I’d have Barton’s back no matter what, but if we were bein’ chased by zombies, I’d trip him in a heartbeat. People say stuff.”

Steve’s look was so sincere, he was so honestly trying to figure out whether Tony was joking, that it was really quite challenging to maintain a straight face. 

“Look, I’m trying to thank you here, Cap. I’m trying to say that I… I got in trouble, and every one of you came to my rescue. And then you, you let that asshole shoot you to keep him off me, and you fall on me like a fucking human shield – you seriously weigh a ton, by the way, don’t ever do that again – and it… changed things. They were changing anyway, but…”

“What things?”

“I told you that I’d never get over seeing my teammates, my friends, at that airport. That whenever I look at you, I see… Well, you know what I said. But even with _my_ verbal gifts, I’m never gonna be able to tell you how good Barton and Natasha looked when they ran into that room at the dam like the fuckin’ cavalry. Except, you know, in tight leather. And then you…”

Tony turned to face Steve fully. “Thank you. You called everyone back, and they came. The same people from the airport, and they dropped everything. For me.”

“Well, Sam had already started his mission, so…”

“Even Sam. The minute his mission was done, he commandeered that Air Force jet to get back here, even though it got him in all kinds of hot water. That mess is still not sorted out.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah,” he mumbled, frowning as he looked for words. “Yeah. Because we’re a team. All of us. You and me, Tony.” Steve peered deeply into Tony’s eyes as he said that, willing him to understand. “I almost cost us that. And it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I know that now, and I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I understand now. I understand why you did what you did, and that it was the right thing for you to do. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. I told you I understand now why you had to go after Barnes, and I do. And it’s not just about the Winter Soldier stuff, what they did to him. Now that I’ve met him, seen you together… I didn’t give you any choice. That was something you _had_ to do, and you couldn’t do it alone. I understand that getting the others to help you, that was something _I_ made you do. I made _them_ do. And I’m sorry.”

For a moment, the two stood looking into one another’s faces, nodding almost imperceptibly because, finally, they each understood what had driven the other to do what had seemed, at the time, unforgiveable. But then the moment stretched, and Tony began to shift his eyes around Steve’s face, and then to things behind him, and Steve began to fidget, until, mercifully, they both realized the ridiculousness of the moment and began to laugh. They embraced, once again as brothers, and it felt like, at long last, a huge chunk of the world shifted back into place.

As they made to go their separate ways, Steve said over his shoulder, “You understand I’ve always said I’d take ‘a bullet.’ One. So, you know, now that I have, you might wanna be more careful.”

“Okay, one: I’ve already had that lecture from Pepper. And two: you’re still an asshole.”

They turned and walked away from one another, both smiling and dabbing at their eyes.

  
  


Bruce and Catherine called it a night when it was still fairly early. They were exhausted from the demands of trying to make sure they spent enough time with each of their guests, and they were leaving early the next morning to fly back to London. One of Tony Stark’s wedding gifts had been to fly Catherine’s mother and the other members of her family who had attended the wedding to and from England on one of his jets. Bruce and Catherine were going to accompany them, then go on to honeymoon on Sardinia.

He insisted on carrying her over the threshold of their apartment in the Compound, although they were planning to live in the Tower so that they could continue their respective work. She laughed, entirely unable to be anything but ecstatic in this moment. 

“I insist that, from now on, you call me nothing but Mrs. Banner. I’m going to make everyone call me that. I might even change my name to Mrs. Banner.”

“I think you just did that. Mrs. Banner.”

“Oh. You’re right! How clever of me!”

Bruce laughed as he laid her on the bed. “Are you drunk?”

“Yes. Drunk on love. Drunk on happiness. And, yes, perhaps, just a wee bit drunk on champagne. Are you going to take advantage of me?”

“Well, I-“

“Before you answer, you should know that _I’m_ going to take advantage of _you_. In case that’s relevant.”

Bruce flopped down on the bed next to her, so that both of them were collapsed on top of the bed covers, still in their wedding clothes, including shoes. He gave a long groan that was a mixture of about a hundred things.

“I guess I’m a little drunk, too. I don’t think it’s taking advantage if we’re _both_ drunk.” He turned his head to look at his wife, smiling like a dork when she turned her head to look at him.

“I love you. I love that you’re my husband.”

“Me, too. Are you really going to be Mrs. Banner?”

“No.”

Bruce hummed a bit in disappointment, but kept smiling.

“ _Doctor_ Banner,” Catherine corrected.

“Wait, really?”

“Really. You don’t object?”

“No,” Bruce said, sitting up. “I don’t- I mean, it might get a little confusing sometimes. But I think that would be… Am I a troglodyte because I really love the idea of you sharing my name?”

“Maybe. But you’re _my_ troglodyte now. So come over here and snog me, Dr. Banner.”

“Aye aye, Dr. Banner,” Bruce practically giggled, as he eased himself down over Catherine.

“Gads, we’re sappy. Glad no one can hear us.”

“Friday can hear us.”

“Yes, Sir, Dr. Banner, but I’m not listening,” came Friday’s voice from wherever it was Friday’s voice came from.

Bruce and Catherine were already kissing too deeply to devote much attention to laughing.

  
  


The lights in the outdoor area where the wedding and reception had taken place had been off for a while now. The mess was still there; Pepper no doubt had a crew coming bright and early to deal with that, but they’d all suspected the party would last into the wee hours, and it had.

Steve had known, somehow, that he’d find Bucky out here, standing looking up at the stars, the glowing tip of his cigarette going bright occasionally as he inhaled. Steve took a step onto the dew-wet grass, wanting to see how close he could get to the silhouette he could barely make out in the gloom before Bucky noticed him. As expected, that one step had been it. Without turning around, Bucky grunted, “Can’t sleep?”

Steve grunted and shrugged a little. “Too keyed up still. Sharon’s asleep, didn’t want to disturb her.”

Bucky grunted back, then handed Steve the pack of cigarettes. This was the only time Bucky ever smoked after the war; late nights when he couldn’t sleep. Steve never smoked, but as he had with Director Coulson that afternoon on the roof of Stark Tower, he pulled one out of the pack and accepted a light from Bucky’s war-era Zippo. 

“Told ya’ she’d say yes, lamebrain.”

Steve almost coughed as he snickered. “The polite thing to say is congratulations.”

“Ain’t ever been accused of bein’ polite,” Bucky smirked. “Still, I do congratulate you. You got way luckier than you deserve, pal. Sharon is a helluva girl.”

“Yeah.”

“No way you deserve her.”

“Absolutely not. Gonna try, though.”

“You do that. ‘Cause you fuck it up, I’m on her side.”

“Don’t blame you.”

They smoked for a while, looking up at the stars and across the Compound grounds, where an early-morning mist was beginning to form.

“You’re gonna be my best man, right?”

“’Course.”

A few minutes later, Steve asked, “Joss OK with you buying her house?”

Bucky shrugged. “Seems to be. Insists on payin’ rent, though. Wants a lease so I can’t throw her out on her ear if I get mad at her.”

“She doesn’t really think you’d do that?”

“’Course not. But she’s smart. It’s a good idea.”

“You really like her, huh?”

“I do. Ain’t ready to ask her to marry me, but…”

“You just met. Anyway, you don’t have to get married just ‘cause I am. Everyone already knows I’m twice the man you’ll ever be.”

Bucky’s low chuckle felt like a thousand other times they’d stood together, smoking in the darkness. Another deeply companionable silence descended that lasted until Bucky lit up another cigarette, and Steve accepted a second. That, too, was familiar. Steve didn’t want another cigarette. He doubted Bucky did, either. But they both wanted a few more minutes of this quiet, unquestioned bond and the complete understanding between them that had never needed many words. 

“How the hell’d we get here, huh, pal?” Bucky asked halfway into their new smokes.

Steve shook his head. “Damnedest thing, ain’t it? Glad you’re here with me, Buck. Real glad.”

“Well, someone’s gotta keep your dumb ass outta trouble.”

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~THE END~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a huge challenge, trying to tell all these stories at once. I doubt I'd take on that much again! But I love these characters, as they exist in this story, and I'm glad I could give them happy endings.  
> My favorite part of this whole story is the relationship between Bucky and Steve. Sure, I ship Stucky, but I really enjoyed exploring them as best friends/brothers. Protective Bucky getting frustrated with reckless Steve never gets old for me.  
> Some of these chapters _kicked my ass_. Some (like this last one) wrote themselves. **I want to thank everybody who spurred me on with comments** \- y'all are the reason this story got written and finished. Seriously, **THANK YOU**. I loved talking with you about this as I was writing it, hearing what you thought, and I trudged on through your encouragement!

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please, for the love of all that's holy, if you read this, please let me know what you think. Bored out of your mind? Hate something? Want something in particular to happen? LET ME KNOW! Comments are like oxygen, no matter what they say. Otherwise, I think I'm just howling into the void. Which sounds way cooler than it is.


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